Response to BK Complaint... & The future...

[threegmgs]

My husband is to respond to a complaint filed by a (personal) creditor, Mr. S, contesting his portion of the BK by this coming Fri. Mr. S is filing Pro Se, claiming that my husband was involved in fraud. However, he doesn't say, at any point, what his basis for fraud is. My husband was involved in absolutely NO fraud in regards to this civil case.

After speaking with an attorney about it, the attorney told my husband that he thinks my husband should do represent himself Pro Se also. He said this could drag on & on, & that even if we win this, Mr. S could appeal the decision YET AGAIN.

So, now, we need to submit a letter to the court, & I'm wondering if my letter is good enough. Also, can we simply ask for the complaint/case to be dimissed?

And, does anyone know how long a person has to appeal this next decision re: the complaint? 30 days? If Mr. S doesn't appeal after that amount of time, will this FINALLY, after years in the court system, BE OVER?


January 29, 2008

United States Bankruptcy Court

Re:
Bankruptcy Case #
Adversarial Proceeding #

To whom it may concern:

This letter serves as my official response to the complaint filed against me by Mr. S in regards to my bankruptcy proceeding. I hereby deny each and every allegation of fraud that Mr. S accuses me of in his complaint. There was absolutely NO fraud involved on my part during the civil suit with Mr. S.

Respectfully submitted & signed,
Mr. X

[MomIcantFindmy]

Should be enough. The burden of proof is on Mr S to prove fraud to the courts.

[HHM]

I think you posted something like this before (the scenario sounds familiar).

First, you need to understand the procedure of what is going to happen, but since both parties are Pro Se, I am not sure how the court will handle it.

In any event.

When you file your response (i.e. answer), the court will usually schedule a conference in which a discovery plan is hashed out and a trial date set. Usually about 10 days before trial, there will be a pre-trial conference (in which settlement will be discussed as will evidential issues for trial. Then a trial (hearing) will be held in front of the BK court in which both sides will present their evidence, call their witnesses, etc. Sometime after that, the judge will issue a ruling. Although it only took me 6 lines to describe that process, the entire process could probably take 6 months (or more).

Only after the court enters its ruling could the decision be appealed.

As for your letter...you want to go line by line through the plaintiffs complaint and either affirm or deny each one. You can issue a general denial...but for example, if in the complaint the Plaintiff says, "Debtor is a resident of xyz state", (and that fact is true), it is bad form to "deny" it.

[threegmgs]

Response

We can't really go "line by line" in denying the allegations, as the complaint is just a bunch of jibberish, yammering, etc. (It's a single-spaced paragraph, which contains more grammatical & punctual errors than it does words.) Both attorneys that have looked at this complaint agree that this guy doesn't know what he's doing, that he has no basis, that he's just rambling on, that this is personal to the guy, etc. I know the decison can't be appealed until it's made, but I was just wondering if if there was a certain amount of time before he might appeal THAT decision. Also, does anyone know where I might find a draft for a Motion for Dismissal for Pro Se'ers?

[threegmgs]

Thanks for the suggestions...

I did go back to our letter & deny the specific allegations given in Mr. S' letter. There were only two. The rest was yammering...

[threegmgs]

Thinking out loud...

Also, the allegations that I specifically denied in the letter... They're allegations of the fraud itself, so I'm not sure that I need to make mention of the rest of the jibberish from his letter?