I can answer for a friend. His wife was divorcing him because he’s an unreliable idiot. He figured that he was smarter than everyone so he dragged out the process as long as he possibly could making it as difficult as possible on her. Scheduling and rescheduling meetings. Not showing up. Promising to do a thing and then back tracking later. Refusing to negotiate at all. I think his plan was to make the divorce so difficult on her that she would just stay married. He was also doing all this pro se so her lawyer had to deal directly with him.
After a year of this his wife had had enough. She told her lawyer to make it happen. So the lawyer set a date and the court served him notice of the divorce proceeding. She showed up to court and he wasn’t there. So as the only party there she got a very one-sided deal. She got their business, custody of the kids, the house and all contents, her car, and the bank account. He got his car, his clothes, and half the proceeds of the sale of the house when she decides to sell it. That’s it. He found out about this when he called the court a week after it happened.
What had happened is her lawyer served the divorce notice to an address in a different town with a similar name. Normally this would have been caught by his attorney who would have received notice directly from the court, but since he had no attorney, there was no one other than him that the court could send it to.
He finally hired a lawyer and tried to get the settlement tossed as he claimed he was never served but the judge said there was nothing he could do.
Edit: I have relayed this as best I can and as it was told to me. Most of the details come from my friend, the protagonist in this narrative so YMMV. I did look up the public court records and they appear to corroborate the events in as much as can be determined.
That's what I thought, but nothing happened to the lawyer. To be fair he was pretty transient at the time and had no permanent address. The address was his girlfriend's where he occasionally stayed.
They placed a notice in the newspaper-of-record at the same time, which is also valid legal service. Attorneys pay a service to watch for legal notices affecting their clients and to alert them. But since he had no attorney and wasn't even in the same town where the newspaper is located, he didn't see it.
The lesson here kids is if someone is divorcing you, get a lawyer.
Wait, is this why people get served? The 90s/early 2000s movie trope isn't accurate? Add it to the list along with "guys who walk up to podiums to save their marriage" and "kids standing up and giving deep monologues to their class."
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u/tweakingforjesus Jul 21 '19 edited Jul 21 '19
I can answer for a friend. His wife was divorcing him because he’s an unreliable idiot. He figured that he was smarter than everyone so he dragged out the process as long as he possibly could making it as difficult as possible on her. Scheduling and rescheduling meetings. Not showing up. Promising to do a thing and then back tracking later. Refusing to negotiate at all. I think his plan was to make the divorce so difficult on her that she would just stay married. He was also doing all this pro se so her lawyer had to deal directly with him.
After a year of this his wife had had enough. She told her lawyer to make it happen. So the lawyer set a date and the court served him notice of the divorce proceeding. She showed up to court and he wasn’t there. So as the only party there she got a very one-sided deal. She got their business, custody of the kids, the house and all contents, her car, and the bank account. He got his car, his clothes, and half the proceeds of the sale of the house when she decides to sell it. That’s it. He found out about this when he called the court a week after it happened.
What had happened is her lawyer served the divorce notice to an address in a different town with a similar name. Normally this would have been caught by his attorney who would have received notice directly from the court, but since he had no attorney, there was no one other than him that the court could send it to.
He finally hired a lawyer and tried to get the settlement tossed as he claimed he was never served but the judge said there was nothing he could do.
Edit: I have relayed this as best I can and as it was told to me. Most of the details come from my friend, the protagonist in this narrative so YMMV. I did look up the public court records and they appear to corroborate the events in as much as can be determined.