This post discusses your options upon being served a Summons and Complaint.
Notice
I am not an attorney. This information is based on my personal research, observations and opinions. Laws vary from state to state. You are responsible for verifying the accuracy of any information you take from this site – and are liable for what you do with it.
As is reflected in my Counterclaim (below), I was originally looking for sanctions (unaware, at the time, that I could sue for damages on a claim for ‘abuse of process’). I followed my Answer and Counterclaim with a Motion to Dismiss the Plaintiff’s Complaint. When the Motion to Dismiss was granted, I amended my Counterclaim to include the official ‘claims‘ of ‘Abuse of Process‘ and ‘Emotional Distress.’ The case went to trial and a jury found Robert M.A. Nadeau guilty of Abuse of Process and awarded me damages for Emotional Distress.
The Takeaways:
- You must file an ‘Answer‘ to a Complaint served upon you. You only have so many days to file it, depending on your state. If we haven’t yet posted the response times for your state on this site, call the ‘clerk of court’ at whichever court the Complaint you received was filed in, and ask them how many days you have to respond from the date that Complaint was filed.
- If you do not file an Answer, you will lose by ‘Default,’ which means that whatever the Plaintiff (the person suing you) was asking for will be granted.
- Rushing out to get a lawyer in time to answer a complaint is a terrible idea (in my opinion), for the following reasons: first, you will be the one supplying the answers to your lawyer in any event; second, these answers are a formality… they’ll never actually be used in the case unless you write something really stupid in them that the other side can use against you; third, the purpose of the ‘Answer’ is to determine whether or not you will be opposing the lawsuit that’s being filed against you; fourth, it’s super easy to do it yourself (especially with our handy ‘Template,’ where all you have to do is fill in the blanks); and finally, the fifth (and most important) reason is that the worst thing that could happen to you right now would be getting hitched to the wrong lawyer. A bad lawyer is worse than even the lawsuit, not just because it’s adding a third party who will also be working against you, but because that new third party is an expert in legally extorting money from people. Not all lawyers are like this of course, but if they’re not, it’s only because they choose not to be. And that choice is really the only thing keeping a lawyer from deciding how much this is going to cost you. Think about it, the longer and nastier the lawsuit, the more money the lawyers will make. Lawyers who incite, terrify or further inflame you are raising a huge red flag in front of your face. Pay attention. They’re playing you. In many cases these days – especially divorce and custody cases – the law dictates how its going to end. And its the same for everyone – no matter who’s representing them. The only exception is when you’re going up against a sociopath. But even then, a lawyer would probably just make things worse. Sociopaths take special handling… but we’ll get into that later.
- When answering a Complaint, less is more. Like I stated earlier, nobody actually pays attention to these answers unless you say something really damaging – which is why it’s best to keep it simple. The law is tricky. It’s easy to say the wrong thing. So it’s best to keep your answers to one word. You’ll have plenty of time to explain your side of the story later. For now, answer ‘Agreed,’ ‘Denied,’ ‘Unknown’ or ‘Not Applicable.’ And always err on the side of caution. Sometimes, the ‘allegations’ in a complaint will contain multiple assertions, a few of which might be true. An exaggerated example of this might be something like: “The Defendant, knowingly, intentionally and with malice stepped onto the Plaintiff’s property.” If you actually stepped onto the Plaintiff’s property, but did it without all three of the precursors (“knowingly, intentionally and with malice“), you can honestly answer that entire allegation with ‘Denied.’ By the way, sociopaths LOVE trick questions with loads of adjectives. In his second lawsuit against me, the judge who sued me five times in a ten year period actually wrote a statement similar to this where, after removing all the adjectives (there were about 10 of them), all that was left was; “She…wrote the truth about my suspension.”
- If you feel that you are the one with a legitimate claim against the person suing you, you may add a counterclaim to your answer.
And with that, we’ll move on to my Answer and Counterclaim in the case that I later won against Nadeau.
Whenever you’re ready, you can choose the template that works best for you and download it for free.
Answer
Answer and Counterclaim 1 claim
Sample Answer and Counterclaim
COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS
ESSEX, SS.
SUPERIOR COURT
DOCKET NO: 14-487D
Robert M.A. Nadeau
Plaintiff,
v.
Nancy Madore
Defendant,
ANSWER TO COMPLAINT FOR EXPEDITED RELIEF TO COMPEL DEPOSITION TESTIMONY OF A MASSACHUSETTS RESIDENT AND COUNTERCLAIM FOR SANCTIONS
NOW COMES the Defendant, Nancy Madore, without counsel, and
answers Plaintiff’s complaint as follows:
1. Unknown.
2. Unknown.
3. Unknown.
4. Denied.
5. Denied.
6. Denied.
7. Denied.
8. Denied.
9. Denied.
10.Denied.
11.Denied.
12.Unknown.
13.Not applicable.
DEFENDANT’S COUNTERCLAIM FOR SANCTIONS
In addition to the aforementioned responses, Defendant makes the following assertions:
1. The Plaintiff, Robert M.A. Nadeau, has in the past, and continues to use his law license and all the trusts that come with it, to terrorize people.
2. The Plaintiff, Robert M.A. Nadeau, has been a party in well over twenty lawsuits in the last decade.
3. The Plaintiff, Robert M.A. Nadeau, has already sued the Defendant twice. The claims in both lawsuits were withdrawn before trial, but only after a grueling, expensive, drawn out and extremely abusive litigation process.
4. The only purpose served in the above referenced litigations against the Defendant, was that the Plaintiff was able to use those litigations to harass the Defendant, the Defendant’s family, and the Defendant’s friend. This failure to produce a legitimate case while harassing his victims was noticed by a judge in yet another of the Plaintiff’s litigations, who stated in his final order: “No credible evidence was produced by the Plaintiff [Nadeau] to explain how [his evidence] was anything other his harassing [the Defendant in that case].” (see Robert M.A. Nadeau vs. XXX, York District Court, PA-13-185).
5. In fact, Judge Dreschler, of this Court, also noticed the abusive, harassing nature of Nadeau’s litigation against the Defendant in his previous litigation against her when, in particular he singled out Nadeau’s sending monthly bills to the Defendant for that very same litigation he was pursuing against her, during the litigation, calling his behavior ‘outrageous and unacceptable.’ (see Robert M.A. Nadeau vs. Nancy Madore, ESCV2014-00487-D, Dec 3, 2014 order).
6. These are not isolated incidents. Other judges, in other cases, have also remarked upon Nadeau’s abusive litigation tactics (although no one ever actually does anything about it). One judge was particularly thorough in describing the abuse in his final order (see Robert M.A. Nadeau et el, v. Hunt, York Superior Court, CV-05-221). This pattern of behavior will continue until the Court addresses it.
7. In all of these cases, Nadeau’s lawsuits, or the bulk of his claims, were either thrown out or withdrawn before trial.
8. In all of these cases, the Plaintiff makes wild accusations without ever offering a shred of evidence, always promising that the evidence will be revealed at a later date, and always failing to provide the promised evidence.
9. In all of these cases, the various Courts trust the Plaintiff, based on his position as a lawyer.
10.These frivolous lawsuits, and the illegal misconduct that accompanies them, is now actively being investigated by the Massachusetts BBO.
11.The Plaintiff’s latest lawsuit against [Defendant in Maine, in case Nadeau is seeking this deposition for] is clearly more of the same. The most obvious flaw in the Plaintiff’s case is that the Plaintiff is suing for damages caused by signs that he alleges (again, without evidence) to be illegal, and even more inconceivably, to have caused his loss of the election, despite the fact that the Plaintiff was in the local news every other week, being cited for his numerous violations of the judicial codes, and for his misconduct as an attorney. In fact, long before the election, in the Plaintiff’s second lawsuit against this Defendant, he had been claiming that the Defendant had caused a ‘serious and irreparable decline’ to his law firm, which indicates this turn in public opinion long before [his current defendant in Maine] put the ‘no Nadeau’ signs out on his own property.
12.The frivolousness of the Plaintiff’s lawsuit against [the Maine Defendant] and this complaint to depose the Defendant is further underscored by the Plaintiff’s claims regarding the deposition of the Defendant, all of which the Defendant denies, and all of which the Plaintiff has once again failed to provide a single shred of evidence to support.
13.The motives for both the lawsuit against [his Maine defendant] and this complaint for a deposition against the Defendant are clear: [the Maine Defendant] is the son of [the woman], who [works in the] Court where the Plaintiff used to be a judge. At one point [the woman] reported misconduct she witnessed from the Plaintiff. Since then, he has actively harassed her. In fact, it was his behavior, not hers or her sons, during the last election, which was unethical and unprofessional. And here again, the Plaintiff has been cited for his unethical and illegal behavior during the election process before, and was even given a 30 day suspension for doing it in a previous election. (see Maine Supreme Judicial Court Decision, JUD-05-01)
14.The Defendant has never met, or spoken to, [the Maine Defendant]. She has spoken to his mother, [the woman who worked with Nadeau], on several occasions. The activities that the Plaintiff describes in his complaint simply did not occur (incidentally, the activities the Plaintiff fabricated do not represent misconduct or illegal behavior in any event). Once again, all of the Plaintiff’s allegations are vague and unfounded, and offered without the slightest bit of evidence.
15.It is noteworthy that the Plaintiff represents himself in these litigations, so that it is his victims, not himself, who have to pay the cost of his abusive litigation techniques.
16.The Plaintiff is a seasoned attorney and has also served as a part time elected judge. Therefore, he knows, or should know, that any claims he makes in his pleadings should be truthful. He also knows, or should know, that his requests during discovery should be based on truths. He cannot prove any of his claims against the Defendant in his Complaint with this Court, because none of them are true. Yet he is expecting that this Court will trust him, as a seasoned lawyer and former judge, just as the courts always do, to be acting on facts and in good faith.
17.Given the abusive, litigious and dishonest history of this Plaintiff, along with the numerous citations from judicial and other disciplinary boards, and the recent ongoing investigation with the Massachusetts BBO, it would be extremely remiss of this Court to trust this Plaintiff and give him the benefit of the doubt, at the risk of him further harming this Defendant.
18.Given the abusive, litigious and dishonest history of this Plaintiff, along with the numerous citations from judicial and other disciplinary boards, and the recent ongoing investigation with the Massachusetts BBO, it would be an act of injustice to order this Defendant to attend yet another deposition to answer what almost always amounts to unrelated but very personal questions to provide the Plaintiff with information he can use against his deponents outside the scope of the litigation, which is not how the lawmakers intended the discovery process to be used, but it is how this Plaintiff has used the process in every single litigation the Defendant has been forced to participate in.
19.Regardless of this Court’s ruling on this matter, the Defendant has yet again been forced to respond to yet another unfounded claim from this Plaintiff. At some point, the Court must protect this Defendant’s civil rights against what is clearly harassment from this Plaintiff.
WHEREFORE THE DEFENDANT, Nancy Madore, requests the following relief:
1. That the Court deny the Plaintiff’s Complaint against the Defendant, if not on the basis of the Plaintiff’s past abusive history and his harassment of this Defendant, then based on the fact that the claims in the Plaintiff’s Complaint, even if true, would not merit the inconvenience of having this Defendant travel out of state to attend a deposition on such vague and flimsy claims (ie., how, specifically, were the signs [his Maine Defendant] supposedly put in his yard ‘illegal’?).
2. That if the Court grants the Plaintiff’s Complaint against the Defendant, that it order the Plaintiff to put his questions in writing, and submit them for approval from this Court before submitting them to the Defendant; and that the Court permit the Defendant to answer in writing as well.
3. That the Court Sanction the Plaintiff on two counts: first, for the Defendant, for the time involved in having to answer yet another Complaint that was submitted to this Court without any evidence to support it—especially in light of his most recent litigation against her in this same Court, which ended on April 2017, when the Plaintiff submitted a Motion to Dismiss his own case on the morning of trial; and second, a sanction for the Court, for the time involved in reading his complaint and this answer, and scheduling a hearing and/or issuing an order.
4. Any and all other relief this Court deems just.
DEFENDANT
_________________________________________________ _____________________
Nancy Madore Date
[Address]
[Phone]
Certificate of Service
I, Nancy Madore, certify that I caused a copy of the foregoing document to be mailed to the Plaintiff, Robert M.A., at his latest known address, as identified in his Complaint, on the date indicated above.
_____________________________
Nancy Madore