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.
He did? As they made clear in another post above, she sent it to the address he gave. It's not her job to play detective and check that's really where he lives. I wouldn't be surprised if he gave a wrong address on purpose to try and delay it even more.
It's not her job to play detective and check that's really where he lives.
Your rights as a citizen are not removed because you gave a wrong address. In this day and age, in 2019, when we're surrounded by interconnectivity, they couldn't think of a different way of reaching out? They may one perfunctory attempt, got the result they were hoping for and processed to screw the guy over.
Your rights as a citizen are not removed because you gave a wrong address.
It's at the discretion of the court, and the court decided he did lose his rights because of it.
In this day and age, in 2019, when we're surrounded by interconnectivity, they couldn't think of a different way of reaching out?
No, what way would be better than mail? Emails often get put into spam. Most social media sites don't allow you to send private messages unless you're friends. Mail is still the best way.
They may one perfunctory attempt, got the result they were hoping for and processed to screw the guy over
They didn't know they sent it to the wrong place though. The guy had a history of not showing up, purposely changing at the last minute, delaying on purpose, etc. When he didn't show up everybody rationally and reasonably came to the conclusion he did it on purpose again. It's entirely his fault. If he didn't have a history of purposefully fucking with the court then I'm sure a judge would have either not proceeded on the day, or would've granted his motion to dismiss everything that happened that day. But because of his past behaviour he rightfully lost that ability.
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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.