Served With a Motion for Summary Judgment

[jso]

I live in PA.

In 2006, I stopped paying on my Citibank credit card. In June of 2008, I received a lawsuit filed by a collection agency, in which I responded with the debt verification letter. They sent proof of my debt about 45 days later. In 2010, I received request for admission. I responded to that. Now, in late 2011, I received motion for judgment. I'm wondering how to respond to this. Citibank (South Dakota) merged with Citibank NA in March of this year. I was never given notification that my debt was under new ownership. Also, I'm wondering that since Citibank NA now owns the debt, if that should constitute a new lawsuit, since it is a new plaintiff.


I'm wondering if anyone has a suggested course of action for this. Thanks.

[jk]

If a suit was filed in 2008, while not impossible for a suit to stretch over the time you describe, it is very unusual.

A submission of a letter demanding verification is not a defense to a suit. If you sent such a letter in response to a suit I filed, I would have continued it with a motion for summary judgement against you. I wonder why they even bothered with allowing it to continue as it did.

If the suit was filed by the collection agency, then the CA is who owned the debt. What happened to CBNA and CBSD is irrelevant to your debt. If you wanted to dispute the standing of the CA to sue you, the time to do it was when you initially responded to the suit. By failing to object to the standing of the CA, you agreed they had standing to sue.

to respond to the motion for judgment, you need to submit a reason it should not be granted. Given the lack of information provided here, I cannot offer you any reasons.

[jso]

I'm not 100% sure what the request for admission response was. I believe I did admit to the debt. I moved and the paperwork is stuffed away somewhere.

I don't believe it's actually a collection agency. I'm sorry. It is a lawyer for citibank.

Citibank South Dakota was listed as the Plaintiff. Now, Citibank NA is listed.

[jk]

I don't believe it's actually a collection agency. I'm sorry. It is a lawyer for citibank.

Citibank South Dakota was listed as the Plaintiff. Now, Citibank NA is listed.

and I had a great answer typed up for that until I realized you said the CA filed suit.


Read the documents submitted to the government concerning the merger. It will explain why there isn't really a new owner of the debt.

[jk]

I think that you can argue standing at any time ... its usually done first thing but I don't think it has to be done first thing. You can file a motion to dismiss at any time.

arguing standing would be a defense to the suit. You must present your possible defenses at the proper time.

[jk]

I thought it was not a "defense" but grounds for a motion to dismiss...


here's a link to a case opinion in which standing was attacked at the appellate level:

http://4closurefraud.org/2011/01/30/...k-of-standing/

If the plaintiff lacks standing then the court never had jurisdiction over the defendant -- hence a motion to dismiss would be in order


I don't know if the plaintiff detailed their standing in their complaint ~ if they did not, then the court may find in the defendant's favor -- a big if of course

a very quick read (and I mean very quick) seems to show the standing issue due to an argument at the initial trial stage that was not satisfied, at least to the defendants satisfaction. The summary judgment jumped over dealing with the standing issue.

In other words: no, it was not brought up later. It was brought up at the initial trial but due to the fact there was a summary judgment, ignoring the lack of standing issue, it was later taken up by the appeals courts and reversed.


Based on that, I believe there was an initial defense arguing standing of the plaintiff.

[ihatewinter123]

JSO,
Why don't you contact the courts to see what paperwork they have and get copies of that paperwork? It would be hard to know how to proceed unless you can review your original admissions to the court, the original filing etc. Since you have to raise all of your defenses in your original admission, you can't come back now and claim something that you didn't state previously. That's my understanding.

Maybe you could review the original documents to see if there was a change since then from Citibank SD to Citibank NA. Could that just be considered a clerical error that the courts would overlook based on the length from the admissions to the motion for judgment?