Last year I was served a complaint for a debt I owe. In return I filed an answer to the complaint. During the discovery, they provided a lis...

Question

Last year I was served a complaint for a debt I owe. In return I filed an answer to the complaint. During the discovery, they provided a list of questions to admit to. I simply ignored the discovery and never responded to them. I was eventually notified of a Case Management Conference for early December. I also was later served a Notice of Motion for Order that Matters in Request that Admissions be deemed Admitted and Request for Monetary Sanctions, which was to be heard towards the end of February of next year so wasn't a huge concern to me at the time. This notice I assume was because I failed to respond during the discovery. Anyways, I was present for the CMC in December and a court date was set for sometime in April of next year. I thought that was it, but was later served again the same "Motion for Order..." to be heard towards the end of February of this year. I'm not sure if I can simply disregard this because of the court date set for April or whether I needed to do something to insure this doesn't affect me financially until April. Another note, I am planning to file for bankruptcy, but needing to wait until April to do so.

Answer

You must not ignore dates for motions or discovery deadline dates. You cannot simply rely on a court date you think may be more important or overriding than other dates, as the law controls these dates and ignorance of the law is no excuse to be relieved of its consequences should you fail to abide by it. There are also deadlines to which you must respond in the legally correct manner to discovery or motions. Otherwise, you will be subject to the legal consequences of doing same. I would recommend that you obtain a litigation attorney immediately to provide you with thorough recommendations and to take immediate action to try to minimize the consequences of your actions so far and how they may play out in the future.. The motions you discuss may be two separate motions, with different consequences. You may want to contact the court by going to its website and determining what the order was for the February hearing, as it may affect you harmfully or otherwise. Courts have wide discretion in imposing monetary sanctions or other sanctions against you up to default judgment sanctions, if you ignore discovery or court orders. Sticking your head in the sand will only make things worse for you. If you end up ignoring a court's order, you could end up having the court issue an arrest warrant against you.