I was fully insured in 2003 when I got into accident. When talking with my insurace company the people in the car I hit were OK and I wouldn't need to keep in contact with them. So in 2004 I moved to my current address which is on my Driver licence and in 2009 I got a letter stating my licence is will be suspended until I pay a judgement. Which I knew nothing about. The person I hit in 2003. Took my insurance company to court and they won 85k then my insurance company turned around and sude me for the money they paid out because I wasn't there to help defend the claim.So even when paying 500 a month for 4 years I still have to pay all expense when I caused the accident. WHy would I get insurance anymore? Ill take the 5000 fine please! No what can I do please help my first child is due and I just paid 20000 on new truck that can't be driven. Thanks

Get a lawyer!

You need to find out why you weren't notified about the suit.

Yes, you can get the judgement set aside if you can prove you were not served notice, If you were given notice and did not realise what it was or just did not go, then it would be valid.

Since the isurance company wants to win, not lose, I don't understand why they did not inform you

I am in a similar situation as you. Except the car that I was in wasn't mine nor was it insured.The peoples' insurance that I hit sued me for 367,000 and won because I wasn't there to defend myself. I lived in Indiana at the time and they have a different law on what is considered served. There they go to the place of residents that is on the police report and make 3 attempts to contact you. On the third attempt they post it to your door and you have been served. (Most states you have to be physically handed the papers to be considered served.) They waited for almost 2 years to sue and I had already moved and had the new address on my license. But it didn't matter. I didn't find out until 4 years after the accident when I got pulled over and was informed that I had a suspended license.

I talked to a lawyer and they told me that it had been to long ago and a judge wouldn't overturn my judgement and tried to get me to file bankruptcy' which wasn't an option for me. So I talked with the lawyers that had sued me and settled with them. They made payment arrangements with me (making me sign a promissory note) for $50 a month for 40 years which only equals out to be $24,000. I paid that for a few years and moved to another state and got behind on the payments and they suspended my license again. But at this point I hadn't changed my license over from Indiana. I talked to some lawyers in the Kentucky where I live now and they told me to stop paying it and get a Kentucky license and they wouldn't be able to touch me in another state. But I can never live, work, or get a license in Indiana again or they can come after me for the full amount.

My situation was a little different from yours, but I would fight it first since you had insurance and its your own insurance that is suing you. You should even be able to file a counter suet to recover any lost wages, lawyer fees, and anything you have had to pay out to have your licence reinstated. But do this first. Don't sign a promissory note until you have exhausted every possible rout or you will be stuck with it.

For now you can talk to a lawyer about getting a work release license that will allow you to drive back and forth to work. If worst comes to worst and you don't want to chance driving on a suspended license, you can drive a moped with out a license.

Now it wouldn't hurt to talk with there lawyers and see what there settling offer is as you can see mine was far less than what I was sued for. And if it is low enough and the monthly payments are good you could consider accepting that offer if you don't want to go through the process of fighting it.

One of the keys here is that you admitted it was your fault ("The person I hit"). So even if you were there to defend yoursefl, you probably would have lost anyway.


By the way, did you change insurance carriers when you moved? If not, then your carrier should have known how to contact you. If that's the case, it's their fault and you shouldn't be responsible.

A minor correction concerning service - "most" States do NOT require personal service. You are describing "nail and mail" service - three attempts at different times of the day followed by leaving the papers ("nailing" them) followed by mailing them to that address. If the papers are NOT returned by the Post Office the service is considered "good."

I am not aware that nailing without mailing is legal anywhere - I am very surprised that the papers were not returned to the sender. No process server wants to go to Court to defend bad service so the good ones make sure they have everything in order and verified. There would be no benefit to having the papers returned and not revealing that they served a bad address.

"We" get paid whether we serve or not.

(I own/operate a process service company in NY.)