Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California
I am a plaintiff pro ser for a breach of contract case in civil court against a contractor. She was put on notice to answer the form interrogatories and form admission and 45 days have passed she did not respond. Just when I am about to compel her, she decided to settle so I hired a lawyer to negotiate a term to settle. I gave her until the last day I can still file a motion to compel her.
While she confirmed via email that she will settle, she has not responded. Just wondering if compeling her is still the way to go for me and should i hire a lawyer to do the work so I can make her pay for it. are there any lawyer willing to do the work just to help me compel her? I have already spent $600 on a lawyer to help negotiate the term of settlement. he is not willing to do any further work until I paid him more money. for $600, All this lawyer did was to fill out a form, made couple phone calls and not even willing to mail the stipulated judgement form himself to the defendant. His service was worse than a paralegal. He did tell teh defendant that she will lose in court but she doesn't seem to care since she already other judgements against her. All I asked for him to do is use his status as a lawyer, a third party, to deal with her so she is wiling to cooperate.
Please advice on how I should move foward with the situation. The defendant runs a bogus consulting firm where she cannot deliver work.
2 Answers from Attorneys
Your major problem is going to be that she probably will never pay you anything. She will drag out signing any settlement papers and once she does she simply will not settle and you will then have to sue her on the breached contract to settle, get a judgment, and then try to enforce it. Unless she has assets you can find, she simply will not pay you much if anything. If she is willing to give you a stipulated judgment that will cut down on your time and costs, but you still will likely not collect anything.
Your getting another attorney to send her a letter likely will not work. She is going to think that the prior attorney dropped out of the case so a new attorney may also drop out. You can look at Brown and Weil's book and others in a law library to see how to file a motion to compel and ask for sanctions if she does not respond to the Order that issues.
I charge $100 per hour and would handle the matter for you, but I suspect that you may just be throwing more money down a hole. I will be on vacation 2/27-3/3 but should be able to look at my e-mail every so often.
not proof read
The 45 day time limit is to file a motion to compel further responses. It does not apply when no responses have been filed at all. The only reason to hire an attorney is to do it right, and get monetary sanctions imposed for her refusal to respond. But an attorney may not be interested in chasing her around with a sanctions award if she is judgment proof.
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