Hello,

We live in the state of Arkansas. On June 12, 2008 my husband received a Motion to Compel. In this letter it says the attorney mailed 'Interrogatories and Request for Production of Documents' which the attorney said he mailed May 29, 2007. As of this date (6-25-08) we have never received any documents to fill out. This attorney has always sent his correspondence through regular mail.

Also, someone that works for the law firm certified that they hand-delivered a copy of the foregoing Motion to Compel to our home address on June 11, 2008. We were out of town on that date.

My question are:


How best do I answer the Motion to Compel, since I never received the documents?


Also, regarding the hand delivered copy that was said to be delivered to my home. How do I respond to this? I need expert advice on my next step.

Thanks,
merobin

Welcome to AMHD. You may need to get into your county's legal library and review the Arkansas Civil Practice Act. The civil practice act may be online, I've just not been able to locate it.

A motion to compel means nothing unless it is signed by a Judge and is part of a legal case. You must surely know if you are a defendant or Plaintiff in a case. The clerk's office in your county can tell you if they have a file with your name on it. In Discovery, you must answer the questions truthfully and fully. If someone does not after 30 days of the service, a motion to compel is requested and if the Judge signs it you better wake up and fly right. My advice is you need a lawyer who is a member of the Arkansas Bar and you need one yesterday.

Regardless of how these documents were sent to you, you should have a copy of the Interrogatories and Production of Documents sent to you. Just because you were out of town when they were hand delivered - where did they supposedly leave the documents? You WILL have to comply with the answers and the documents if a Judge enters an Order to Compel.

You could call the law firm and ask for another set to be either hand delivered to your home or mailed to you and then properly answer the questions and gather up your documents. You are just delaying the enivatable production of the paperwork and answering the questions by asking the question you did. If you got the Motion to Compel, the law office assumes you received the original request and just refuse to answer.