Request For Admissions To Defendant
I am being sued by an original creditor that has retained a local firm, Suttell and Associates PS. I was served with a summons that I answered and following that I received in the mail the "Request For Admission To Defendant". I also received what they say is the "Debt Validation" which consists of an affidavit and a copy of a monthly statement. From what I've read, I don't believe those are sufficient to "validate" that the debt is mine. Regardless, I need some advice on how to proceed?!
Thank you in advance,
PCNET67 
Request For Admissions To Defendant
You do need to answer their request for such information however how you answer their questions is crucial. In most jurisdictions you have 30 days within which they must be answered although some jurisdictions will allow an extra 10 days under certain conditions. What the rules of procedure often state is that in the event the questionaires are not answered the presenting party must contact the offending party and ask when they plan to do so and then the respondent usually has an additional 10 days in which to respond.
If the respondent does not answer within the time frame allotted by the local rules of civil procedure the sending party may demand in court that all questions not answered be deemed admitted.
How you answer the questions is important and in order to properly answer without benefit of attorney you need to study your rules of civil procedure to determine what are permissable answers, permissible reasons to object to certain questions and how to properly deny the question.
You also need to learn to look for questions that are irrelevant to the outcome of the case and answer them as being irrelevant to the outcome of the case and therefore objectionable.
An example of such a question might well be "List all of your employers for the last 10 years" or maybe "Please list all of the addresses at which you have resided or received mail during the last 5 years"
Such questions are irrelevant to the outcome of the case and the rules of civil procedure in most jurisdictions would allow you to object to such questions as are irrelevant to the outcome of the case.
Another thing to know and remember is that if you send demand for a list of interrogatories to the plaintiff's attorney he will most likely not answer any of them in any meaningful manner. He will object to every one that he possibly can get by with objecting to. I have seen attorneys from all over the nations respond to demand for admissions and interrogatories sent by hundreds of defendants and not one of them has ever answered any question in any meaningful way. Attorneys are very skillful at evading the questions of defendants. Demand for production of documents usually produces much the same results although that is a bit more likely to succeed than are demand for admissions or interrogatories.
Did you send the plaintiff's attorney your demand for interrogatories, admissions and production of documents? If not you might wish you had done so because as it is you are behind the curve on the 30 day time frame when you should have been on the positive side of the curve so that in the event the plaintiffs attorney failed to answer your demands you would have the right to go to court and demand that all your questions be deemed admitted and a way to at least hope to deny them the right to present any documentation against you in court.
Most judges won't allow that to happen to the plaintiff however for the simple reason that if he can't bring documentation into court then he supposedly has no case. Judges are well aware that if there is such a failure (rather unlikely)it is the fault of the attorney and not the fault of the plaintiff and the plaintiff should not be penalized for the improper actions of his attorney.
So fair or not, your failure to answer the demands presented to you in some manner or other will weigh heavily against you but the attorney's failure to answer the defendant's demands is not likely to hurt the plaintiff's case at all because it isn't the plaintiff's fault that his attorney failed to do his job.
There are lots and lots of tricks to this courtroom stuff and the only way to learn any of them is to carefully study your Rules of Civil procedure. You will find that there are usually local rules of court procedure and then there are the state rules of civil proceedure which are always based on state statutes.
Local rules can and usually do vary from county to county because they usually only deal with how the local courts want to run the daily grind of the court system. You have to learn the both of them to even hope to succeed against a seasoned attorney.
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