Sued by a Debt Collector in Los Angeles County

Once you're served with a collection lawsuit in California, you have 30 days to file a written response with the court. Do nothing and the creditor takes a default judgment, which leads to wage garnishment of up to 20% of your disposable earnings and bank levies. Answering buys time and sometimes ends the case. Filing bankruptcy stops the lawsuit at any stage.

Someone handed you papers

A process server caught you in the parking structure at work, or the papers were left with your teenager at the door and a copy came by mail a few days later. The caption says Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. The plaintiff is a name you don't recognize, something like an LLC with "Portfolio" or "Acquisitions" in it, and the amount is bigger than you remember owing.

The natural reaction is to put it in a drawer. That's the single most expensive thing you can do with it.

A collection complaint is not a bill. It's the beginning of a court case with a deadline, and the deadline is 30 days from the date you were served. Miss it and the plaintiff files a request for default. No trial, no evidence, no chance to question the amount. The judgment gets entered for whatever they asked for, plus costs and interest, and it lasts ten years.

The 30-day window

The clock starts on the day of service. Personal service, it's that day. Substituted service (papers left with an adult at your home or work, then mailed), the clock starts ten days after mailing, which is why the mailed copy matters. If you're not sure when you were served, assume the earliest possible date.

Within those 30 days you can do one of four things.

1. File an answer with the court. It's a form, the fee is a few hundred dollars for a limited civil case, and a fee waiver is available on the same income basis as the bankruptcy court's. The answer denies the allegations and raises defenses. The case then proceeds to a case management conference and, eventually, a trial date.
2. Negotiate with the plaintiff's attorney before the deadline. A written settlement with a stipulation for dismissal ends the case. A stipulated judgment does not; be careful which one you sign.
3. File bankruptcy. The lawsuit stops the day the petition is filed, regardless of where it stands, and the debt is discharged.
4. Nothing. The default judgment follows within a few weeks, and the enforcement tools after that.

Most people who call us have done the fourth thing on a previous lawsuit and are now trying to avoid it on this one.

What a default judgment leads to

A judgment is a license to take. The plaintiff's attorney gets a writ of execution from the clerk, and then it's a matter of which asset they reach for first.

Wages are the usual target. An earnings withholding order goes to your employer through the sheriff, and up to 20% of your disposable earnings comes out of every check until the judgment, interest and costs are paid. At a $4,000 monthly take-home that's around $800 a month, indefinitely. The employer has no choice, and it's the reason your HR department finds out about your debt.

Bank levies are the other. The sheriff serves your bank, the account freezes, and whatever is there goes to the creditor, subject to exemptions you have to claim within days. If the plaintiff doesn't know where you work or bank, they set a debtor's examination and ask you under oath, in a courtroom downtown, with a bench warrant available if you skip it.

An abstract of judgment gets recorded against any house you own. All of this is what we stop when a client files, along with the calls and the lawsuits, but it's a great deal cheaper to prevent than to reverse.

When it's worth answering

Not every collection suit deserves a bankruptcy, and not every one deserves an answer. The ones worth fighting in state court share a few features.

Debt buyers. When the plaintiff bought the account from the original bank, California's Fair Debt Buying Practices Act requires them to have the actual account records and the chain of title before they sue. Many can't produce them. An answer that demands proof forces the issue, and a surprising number of these cases get dismissed before trial.

Old debt. The statute of limitations on most written contracts in California is four years from the last payment or charge. A suit filed in year five is defensible, but only if you raise the defense. A default judgment on a time-barred debt is fully enforceable.

Wrong person, wrong amount, identity theft, a co-signer who was released. All real defenses, all lost if you don't answer.

The ones not worth fighting: a suit by the original creditor on a debt you actually owe, in the right amount, within the limitations period. There, an answer buys four to eight months and then a judgment. If there's one such suit and you can settle it, do. If it's one of several and there's no money to settle any of them, that's a bankruptcy conversation.

Bankruptcy at any stage of the lawsuit

The automatic stay doesn't care how far along the case is. Served yesterday, answer due Friday, trial next month, judgment entered last year and garnishment already running. All of it stops at filing.

What changes is the cleanup. If we file before the judgment, the state case is stayed and eventually dismissed, and the debt is discharged. If we file after the judgment, the debt is still discharged, but a recorded abstract may need a separate motion to clear from your title, and any money already garnished stays gone unless it fits the 90-day preference rule. The earlier in the lawsuit you call, the less there is to undo.

Timing matters in the other direction too. Filing a Chapter 7 the week after you were served is sometimes premature, if you'd pass the means test more comfortably in two months or a tax refund needs to be received and spent first. We'll file an answer to hold the state case, then file the bankruptcy on the right date. The answer costs little and keeps the default off the table while the real plan comes together. The costs of each chapter are published so you can compare them against what the lawsuit is asking for.

If the deadline already passed

A default is not always final. California courts can set aside a default judgment for mistake, surprise or excusable neglect within six months, and at any time if you were never validly served. We've seen judgments vacated years later where the process server's declaration described an apartment the client had moved out of before the lawsuit was filed. If a default was just entered and it's one suit, a set-aside motion may cost less than a bankruptcy and put you back at the 30-day starting line. If it's the third suit this year, the set-aside is a detour.

From Naomi

the drawer is real. I've had clients bring in a manila folder with four complaints in it, each one served over the course of two years, none of them answered, all four now judgments with garnishments queued up behind each other. Each of those cases could have been answered for the cost of a form and an afternoon. The debt buyers who filed three of them probably couldn't have proved the chain of title. What frustrates me isn't that people don't know the rule. It's that the papers are written to look like something you can ignore, and the consequence of ignoring them is a decade long.

Questions people ask about this

Written and reviewed by Naomi Reyes-Ashford, Certified Specialist in Bankruptcy Law, State Bar of California Board of Legal Specialization. Last reviewed September 2026.