Suing Someone in a Different State

I have a civil court-related question. I'm in the process of starting a business and basically got taken for a ride by someone who was going to set up an affiliate marketing program (and other online marketing programs) for my business. I STUPIDLY paid him in full up front -- not a huge amount, but a little over $2,100, and I'm very vengeful when it comes to people taking my money -- and he went MIA, first for about 10 days. His phones weren't working, he wouldn't return e-mails, etc., etc. Finally he popped his head up after 10 days and said sorry, that he got in a car accident (total BS), etc., etc., and that he'd have some of the work to present to me for my approval that day. Then the next day. And so on and so on. I saw and heard nothing from him, and he STILL had my money.

 

He stopped returned calls and e-mails again. I eventually sent him an e-mail saying that if he didn't respond by the next day he should consider this termination of our contract and of our relationship. He of course didn't respond, so I followed up and sent him one stating that our relationship was officially terminated, and he should return my money and we'd part ways.

 

(During this MIA period, by the way, I had a private investigator look into him. Turns out he was evicted from his office for not paying the rent and owed the landlord a lot of money. I also tracked down and spoke to some of his former clients and they said they experienced varying degrees of weirdness and MIA status with him as well. So I now knew I was dealing with a bad egg.)

 

When I asked him to return the money or else I'd get the legal system involved, he wrote back "Good luck filing the papers."

 

NOW . . . I'm in New York and he is in Michigan. Does anyone have any idea how I go about filing suit against him? Do I file here in NY or in his town in Michigan? If I have to file in Michigan, would I have to show up in court, etc.?

 

Can anyone give me some insight into how I go after this criminal . . . ?

 

Thanks in advance.

I STUPIDLY paid him in full up front -- not a huge amount, but a little over $2,100, and I'm very vengeful when it comes to people taking my money.

 

I would be the same way!

 

When I asked him to return the money or else I'd get the legal system involved, he wrote back "Good luck filing the papers."

 

THAT would of infuriated me.

 

 

Good luck and keep us posted! Karma is a biitch, and I hope the scammer gets everything coming to him.

 

I would be the same way!

 

 

 

THAT would of infuriated me.

 

 

Good luck and keep us posted! Karma is a biitch, and I hope the scammer gets everything coming to him.

 

Oh, you have NO idea how furious I was.

 

Thanks, I'll definitely keep you in the loop.

 

 

Can't help you with any information, but wanna give you thumbs up for going after the scumbag. Similar things happened to me before, but I decided to "cut the losses" and let it go, still kicking myself to this day for having acted w/o any principles.

What part of Michigan is he in? I don't know if I can be of any help, but keep up posted and let us know.

His business was "officially" located in Mt. Pleasant, but he got evicted from that office as a I mentioned, so now I'm not too sure. His Myspace page has Battle Creek as the location, an ISP check that my hosting company did (long story) showed that he might have been in Alma, MI. So getting a physical bead on him might be tough. But thanks very much for offering to help.

 

I'll keep you posted.

 

What part of Michigan is he in? I don't know if I can be of any help, but keep up posted and let us know.

 

Im no expert but have been in a similar situation and thought about doing the same. I'm thinking you file where you live, have him served where he lives and he has to bring his sorry ass to New York for court. If he no-shows, you win by default.

without any other details regarding the contract your biggest hurdle if you sue him in NY would be Personal jurisdiction over him.

Sorry to hear about your situation-it really sucks. Like others, I am not an attorney, but advice that I have received from an attorney in a similiar type of situation is that you are probably best to just write the whole situation off as an expensive learning lesson, which is probably not the advice you want to hear. You can sue the guy in NY, but most likely what will happen is that you pay someone to serve the guy in MI with a subpeona, you spend your own time/money filing the case with the court, the guy will, of course, not bother to show up, and you will never collect any judgement that will be awarded to you. Ultimately, not a real satisfying outcome, but hope that things work out for you.

Hi guys,

 

Thanks for all of your input so far. I was thinking the same, that if I serve him in NY and he doesn't show up (which of course he wouldn't), I would win by default. Collecting the actual money is another matter, I know, but at the very LEAST it would be somewhat satisfying just to have a judgement rendered against him. He should at least have that on his record. I realize I would have to hire someone to serve him in Michigan, and probably use my P.I. again to help physically track him down so that he could be served.

 

However, just a short time ago I sauntered over to my local civil court building where they have a pro se attorney available that you can speak to for free during certain hours, so I got his take. Keep in mind, this kid looked to be in his twenties, so I don't put too much stock in what he said. But he said that I would have to serve him in his locality (i.e. in Michigan), which would of course involve either me showing up for court dates or me hiring an attorney to do so, which would make the expense not worth it.

 

I am VERY MUCH hoping that kid was wrong, though, and that I can serve this schmuck in a New York court, win a judgement against him (likely by default via him not showing up), and then worry about collecting the money. (Maybe I'll then have to start a thread entitled "How To Collect Money Owed to You From a Civil Judgement When the Schmuck Claims He's Broke -- Need Advice."

 

:-)

 

Would love to hear if anyone knows for sure whether or not I can file here in New York . . . .

 

Thanks again.

 

 

I'm not an attorney so please don't consider this legal advice. Furthermore, I'm not familiar with NY Civil Procedure rules, but my guess is they may not be very different from IL rules. Basically a state court needs to have personal jurisdiction over the person you are suing. In IL, this may be by way of consent, presence, or a long arm statute. The first two are not available in your case (although presence may be established by showing that this guy does regular business within the state, that doesn't seem the case in your situation), but depending on the wording of the NY long arm statute, it may permit the court to exercise PJ where there has been a business transaction from which the lawsuit arises. If that's the case, you should be able to file in NY. You will need to have someone personally serve him wherever he is located. If he decides to fight it, he'll either have to drag his butt to NY, try filing motions for change of venue (where it will be unlikely that he will succeed), or risk a default judgment. If you do get a judgment against him, you should be able to go to MI and try to collect from him there as the MI court will have to respect the decision of the NY court.

 

Hope this helps a bit. Like I said, this is based on my knowledge of IL civ pro and not NY. You would either have to confirm this with an attorney or do your own research. Also before you start filing papers, you may want to check some MI state websites to see if you can locate some of his assets. If he is insolvent and has $10 to his name, you can sue him all you want and you still won't collect. On the other hand if he has some property, you may be able to get a judgment lien.

 

Yuri

Cant tell you what the law is in Mich or NY.... But I know CA pretty well....

 

 

Heres the deal (if it were CA- your jurisdiction is probably similar).

 

Its a small claims case. Small claims usually doesnt accept out of state service of process. So you would have to sue him in his state, and that will probably cost you more than you stand to win.

 

You could sue him in your state in Superior Court (or whatever they call it there), but its a much more complex process and probably not worth it for 2K.

Cant tell you what the law is in Mich or NY.... But I know CA pretty well....

 

 

Heres the deal (if it were CA- your jurisdiction is probably similar).

 

Its a small claims case. Small claims usually doesnt accept out of state service of process. So you would have to sue him in his state, and that will probably cost you more than you stand to win.

 

You could sue him in your state in Superior Court (or whatever they call it there), but its a much more complex process and probably not worth it for 2K.

thats the problem with these petty criminals.

 

I feel they know its not worth pursuing because, in the end, it will cost more to sue than the actual amount of suit.

the story is as follows

if you want to sue him you will need to go to where he resides, i sued many people and i know this first hand.

 

take your losses and learn from this, never pay up front

 

Good luck & sorry about your loss.

thats the problem with these petty criminals.

 

I feel they know its not worth pursuing because, in the end, it will cost more to sue than the actual amount of suit.

 

 

I heard about a guy who set up his business on this. He drives a Bentley and has a 7 figure condo. Crazy.

You need to hire this guy:

What about sending the debit to a collection agency? Let them harass him

 

not saying it will help get the money back but at least its another mark against his credit.

 

 

If you know where he is , pay some gangsters 1k, they will do anything for you.

Or perhaps see if you can make a criminal fraud case out of it...i.e. he never planned on doing any work, just took your money and ran. Talk to the D.A.s office about it and if there is something potentially criminal you may get something via restitution if it goes that far. If nothing else, he'll have to come back to answer to the criminal charges (if any can be filed) and or cut a deal to keep it from going on his record which would include you getting your money back. Get with his landlord and see if he wrote any bad checks, which could also be criminal in nature, if he wrote them knowing he had no money in the account to cover them. That would add some weight to your claims and might make the D.A. more inclined to investigate/prosecute.

 

Civil is OK, but like the others have said, the money amount isn't worth it. Sometime that makes a potential criminal action that much more attractive, if its a possibility.

Yeah, I was really hoping there'd be a way to get criminal charges involved. I'd LOOOOVe to scare him with jail time.

 

Thanks for everyone's input so far. I'll see how far I can push it from a civil perspective at least. If it's not going to be doable/worth it, then . . . I don't know. Vengeance of some sort sure would be sweet though. :-)

 

 

Or perhaps see if you can make a criminal fraud case out of it...i.e. he never planned on doing any work, just took your money and ran. Talk to the D.A.s office about it and if there is something potentially criminal you may get something via restitution if it goes that far. If nothing else, he'll have to come back to answer to the criminal charges (if any can be filed) and or cut a deal to keep it from going on his record which would include you getting your money back. Get with his landlord and see if he wrote any bad checks, which could also be criminal in nature, if he wrote them knowing he had no money in the account to cover them. That would add some weight to your claims and might make the D.A. more inclined to investigate/prosecute.

 

Civil is OK, but like the others have said, the money amount isn't worth it. Sometime that makes a potential criminal action that much more attractive, if its a possibility.

 

You can't beat blood out of a turnip as the old saying goes. Your options (in my eyes) are to turn it over to a collection co. File a complaint to the Better Business. Let it go, the jackazz is judgement proof.

I think you need to hire this guy...