Legal Question in Credit and Debt Law in Missouri

Re: Petition for breach of contract

You have some serious defenses here, and you may have an individual claim for a breach of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act. It is unlawful under the act to sue in a venue other than the home venue of the defendant, irrespective of any other venue law. You can find more information about the FDCPA at www.ftc.gov. Its worth reading.

At a minimum you should download the statute from the FTC website and take it with you. Do not fail to show up at the hearing or they will take a default judgment. Take the statute and tell the judge where you live and tell him that they have violated the act suing you there. Tell him that based on the statute, you want the case dismissed. If he does not dismiss the case, then ask him for a continuance so that you can get a lawyer involved who can file a counterclaim and a writ of prohibition. Tell him you also want to raise the issue of the statute of limitations since the lawsuit does not state any dates (that's just one of the many things they do to avoid the SOL).

If the "Assignee" is someone like CCR or Unifund, or Cavalry Investments, you're being set up for a fleecing. Under MO law, the statute of limitations is 10 years. But its an affirmative defense, and you have to raise it. If you fail to show up in court, you lose it. So you MUST show up. If you don't even though you have this defense, you'll lose and they can now collect on this very old and very stale debt.

You probably have a FDCPA claim and you should see a lawyer. There is surely someone in the KC area who can help you with this. You might want to call Legal Aid of Western MO and talk to them.

Good luck.