Default judgement?
Default judgement is issued in the plaintiff's favour(your employer in this case) if you had been issued summons and you did not appear in court for the hearing. A lot of companies fail to (deliberately) inform the person they are trying to sue in order to get a deault judgement. I suggest you write to the judge in this case and inform him that you did not receive any notice to appear in court ( if that is the case ). Request the judge to set aside the ruling and be prepared to go to court.
I was in the same situation before and I received a letter one stating that my former employer was awarded a default judgement. There were 6 other guys in the same situation. One of them wrote to the judge and had the judgement nullified.
I received a letter from collection agency for the payment ($15000 as stated in the agreement signed in India before hire). I told the collection agency that it was a default judement and that I was going to fight it. he was surprised that I knew waht default judgement was and so far I haven't heard back from him. It doesn't show up in my credit report and its been around 5 years since this happened.
When I spoke to an attorney, he said that the company can only sue you for the amount of money it invested in your training. This is for a case where the employee leaves before the agreed upon time in the contract. The contract is not worth the paper it is written on unless non-compete agreements are broken.
My 2 cents. Please contact a lawyer as soon as possible. You will have 2 years (I think) to contest the default judgement.
ms2406 said:
Default judgement is issued in the plaintiff's favour(your employer in this case) if you had been issued summons and you did not appear in court for the hearing. A lot of companies fail to (deliberately) inform the person they are trying to sue in order to get a deault judgement. I suggest you write to the judge in this case and inform him that you did not receive any notice to appear in court ( if that is the case ). Request the judge to set aside the ruling and be prepared to go to court.
I was in the same situation before and I received a letter one stating that my former employer was awarded a default judgement. There were 6 other guys in the same situation. One of them wrote to the judge and had the judgement nullified.
I received a letter from collection agency for the payment ($15000 as stated in the agreement signed in India before hire). I told the collection agency that it was a default judement and that I was going to fight it. he was surprised that I knew waht default judgement was and so far I haven't heard back from him. It doesn't show up in my credit report and its been around 5 years since this happened.
When I spoke to an attorney, he said that the company can only sue you for the amount of money it invested in your training. This is for a case where the employee leaves before the agreed upon time in the contract. The contract is not worth the paper it is written on unless non-compete agreements are broken.
My 2 cents. Please contact a lawyer as soon as possible. You will have 2 years (I think) to contest the default judgement.