Legal Question in Civil Litigation in California

Re: Sued and never received anything about it and it went to court without me kn

There is a procedure to ask the court to set aside the default and the default judgment. It's a fairly routine process and you basically need to file a motion explaining that you did not receive the summons and complaint. If the court believes you and if you act quickly, there is a good chance that the default and the resulting judgment will be set aside.

Once that has been done, though, you will still need to fight the lawsuit. If, as you say, the accident really was your fault and you had no insurance, defending yourself may be difficult. You may still be able to dispute the amount of the judgment and, depending on the facts, you might even be able to win outright (though your post suggests that this is unlikely).

You might find that settling with the insurer makes more sense than fighting. Even so, it may be a good idea to attack the default so that it does not appear on your record; such things can interfere with your credit in the future.

Re: Sued and never received anything about it and it went to court without me kn

You can set aside the default and default judgment on the grounds that you did not received actual notice of the summons and complaint. The procedure to do this is to file a motion to set aside the judgment.

There are procedural requirements and time constraints for this type of motion.

If the judgment gets set aside, you will still have to defend your lawsuit. A word of warning, a judgment based upon a motor vehicle accident may be recorded with the DMV and cause your license to be suspended.

Feel free to contact me. I have experience setting aside such judgments, and negotiating settlements in this type of case.

Re: Sued and never received anything about it and it went to court without me kn

If the judgment is less than 6 months old, you can have an attorney move to set it aside, but unless you believe the amount of the judgment is substantially higher than it should be, there is no reason to do so, AND you have to convince the court of that before it will set aside the judgement. You said it was your fault.