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Consumer Law

: Alabama Consumer Blog

Anatomy Of An Alabama Collection Lawsuit ? Part Two ? Filing Of The Lawsuit

By M. Stan Herring

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In our first post in this series we discussed the background of how a debt gets to a local
collection law firm such as Zarzaur & Schwartz, which then leads to the filing of a lawsuit by a debt buyer.

In this post we want to examine how a lawsuit is filed. We will take a typical situation where a lawsuit is filed in Jefferson County (Birmingham) by a debt buyer. The collection law firm will file a Complaint which is the legal pleading or document which sets forth the allegations against you. Normally this is filed in District Court (up to $10,000.00) or Small Claims Court (up to $3,000.00). When it is filed in one of these Courts, there is normally not much detail. For example, there is typically not an indication of who the original creditor is or the account number, or anything like that. It will simply state that the debt buyer alleges that you owe money based upon the stated account, open account, and/or breach of contract. We have previously discussed these claims in our post on statute of limitations.

In most situations this complaint is a one-page document. This is filed in the Courthouse along with the address that you can be served. A summons is also filed which explains to you when you need to answer ? which in this case is 14 days.

In our next post we will examine how you are served with the collection lawsuit.

Full post as published by Alabama Consumer Blog on May 20, 2008 (boomark / email).