In 1998 I underwent surgery at a hospital. I was young, had no insurance and my salary was under $400 a week. When I went to the hospital to try to work out a payment plan, the hospital refused any payment less than half my salary each month which would mean that I would have to live on the street (I live in a very expensive city) in order to make payments...Needless to say that it did not make any sense since if I had to live on the street I would not be able to hold a job and therefore pay the medical bill...
The bill was sent to collection and apparently the collection agency obtained a judgement against me in 2001 which I had no knowledge of because they never served me. I recently found out about the judgement because when I went to make a transaction at my bank, my account was frozen. I immediately filed an order to show cause because I was never served. The lawyers never showed up and the judge signed the motion to vacate. 2 days later I was sent a summons to appear in court in 3 weeks. It seems that I am being sued again (I am not sure since what I received is a Notice of Status from the court- not sure what that means but assume that it is a lawsuit).
My question is, can I use the statute of limitations as my defense?
The debt is at least 10 years old.
I know that this not mean that the debt will go away, but I am hoping that they will at least settle to a reasonable amount. As of now they don't even want to talk about a settlement even though the judgement was vacated.

Also, I am pretty sure that at the time I qualified as an indigent patient and probably entitled to a discount however I don't think that the hospital took that into account. The bill is almost $13,000 and unless I win the lotto I doubt I will ever have that kind of money....

Please let me know if you think I have a good defense by using the SOL.
Thanks.