[OP was sued for his involvement in a car accident. He gave the legal
papers to his insurance company at its request.]
Yesterday I got a "Notice of Default" from those lawyers in which "the
above named plaintiff will take a default judgement against [me] for
the relief demanded in the complaint, together with costs and
disbursements." I will be calling my insurance company first thing
tomorrow morning, but I would like to know what exactly this means.
The amount they're demanding for damages is nearly $4k.
It means that the plaintiff is going to ask the judge to enter a
judgment against you, without further proceedings, for the amount of
the requested damages, plus the expenses of the litigation. Typically
a default at this early stage indicates that no one filed an answer to
the complaint against you.
There is no way I am responsible for this damage. What I would also
like to know is, don't I have insurance for this sort of thing?
If you have auto liability insurance, then the answer is likely yes.
And a liability insurer generally has the obligation to defend its
insured, as well as to pay any judgment against the insured (up to the
coverage limit).
And
how does this guy have the right to get around whatever the insurance
companies decide is liability?
Um, (trying not to sound too sarcastic) it's called the right to trial
by jury. If insurance companies got to make the liability decisions,
nobody would ever get paid on a claim.
