Under the State of Ohio law... I have a llc and this llc is being sued in small claims court for non-payment of some fees ($2500-$3000)... if these fees are paid before the scheduled court date, first-do I still need to appear and second if I do pay and my credit is damaged because of this suit do I have any ramifications against the other party for a wrongful suit or deformation of character or anything else.. please advise!

First, if you do pay, then you make sure you get a promise in writing that the suit will be dropped and follow through to confirm it.

As for the defamation it depends. If everything they say is truthful you have no grounds for defamation.

If you pay the money to the Plaintiff by check, get a copy of the cancelled check for court. You will probably have to pay the court filing fee and service fees as well. You can request that the suit against you be dropped once everything is paid. Check the court docket online (if your county is online) and see for yourself if the case is dismissed. Don't just take the Plaintiff's word for it. And no, you don't need any kind of release if you've paid by check. If your courthouse is not online, call up the Clerk's Office, give them the case number and see what status the Clerk has the case as being.

If it is not dismissed, show up at the hearing and take your cancelled checks and show to the Judge and the case will be officially dismissed as you paid off the suit money.

Well at this point you will have to pay in full, including the costs of the court filing.

And you will still need to appear to be sure the case was dismissed ( or at least I would) With your proof it was paid, with a receipt stating payment in full and all claims and the suit were being withdrawn.

Now credit hurt, if you really owed the money, and did not pay, and they had to sue to get the money, what is there to sue about, you can not sue about the truth hurting your credit report.

That is like a person who had a car repo'ed and then wants to sue the car dealer for reporting it. If you did not want it reported, you should have paid before they had to sue you for the money

If you're being sued for non-payment, odds are that your credit is already damaged.

And no, you don't have any ramifications against the other party. You chose not to pay the bill and let it get this far.

I'm assuming you don't know what "wrongful suit" means because you admit that you owe the money, discuss paying it in full and then ask about a "wrongful suit."