Our client was sued by Arrow Financial Services, LLC as an assignee of Washington Mutual Bank. Arrow Financial was represented by the law firm of Hayt, Hayt & Landau in Miami, FL, including their attorneys Robert J. Orivitz and Dana Kalman (Dana Stern). They sued our client for Breach of Contract and for Money Lent. Our client initially tried to represent himself, but later retained us to handle the case for them when the debt collector would not give up. After we were retained, we applied our legal knowledge and experience, and the case was dismissed.

The Court also imposed sanctions against both Arrow Financial Services and Hayt, Hayt and Landau, who then appealed those sanctions. After extensive briefing, the appellate court upheld the sanctions against the debt collectors.  We are very proud that we were able to win the case for our client and provide him and his family with the justice they deserved.

In many cases, a consumer may have a legal defense to a lawsuit filed against them that seeks to collect on a credit card debt or other debt.  You may have defenses such as the lawsuit being too old (statute of limitations), the debt collector did not follow proper procedure in filing or pursuing the lawsuit, or others.  The question then is . . . how do you assert those defenses?

Don’t expect to just show up at trial and start talking about those defenses, as it may be too late by then.  The Court can decide that you are prohibited from asserting them at trial if you did not provide adequate notice about them before the trial.

In short, you generally assert those defenses by filing your Affirmative Defenses with the Court where the lawsuit is pending, as well as the debt collection lawyer.  This lets the debt collector and the Court know what your defenses are, and allows you to argue them at trial.  Filing them in writing prevents the debt collector from later arguing that they are unfairly surprised by your “new” claims.  If you properly preserve those defenses, and if you have the evidence to prove them in Court, you may be able to defeat the debt collector’s lawsuit even if they prove all of their allegations.  Don’t lose that right by waiting too long to file your Affirmative Defenses.