The Court of Appeals of Indiana has affirmed the denial of a defendant’s motion to set aside a default judgment that a debt buyer obtained against him more than seven years ago, ruling he failed to prove the trial court never had jurisdiction over him.
The background: The plaintiff, a debt buyer, sued the defendant in Indiana back in late 2018, seeking to recover a debt of $980.26.
- The summons was served at the defendant’s residence, and the sheriff’s return had boxes checked for both personal service and leaving a copy at the dwelling “followed by mailing a copy via US First Class mail,” along with a handwritten note that it was “served to adult female at [the] above address”
- The defendant never responded, and a few months later the trial court entered a default judgment of $1,165.26, consisting of the debt plus $185 in costs, along with 8% post-judgment interest
- This past March, roughly seven years after the judgment was entered, the defendant moved to set it aside, claiming he never received the summons or complaint and that no copy was mailed to his residence as Indiana’s trial rules require after service by leaving a copy at a dwelling
- The trial court denied the motion, then denied a motion to reconsider, apparently before the plaintiff’s response arguing the seven-year-old challenge was untimely had even been filed
- On appeal, the defendant argued the judgment was void for lack of personal jurisdiction; the plaintiff did not file an appellee’s brief, so the Appeals Court applied a less stringent standard requiring the defendant to show only prima facie error
The ruling: The Appeals Court affirmed the denial of the motion, concluding the defendant did not carry his burden of proving the trial court lacked personal jurisdiction, even under the relaxed standard triggered when, as the court noted, it “need not undertake the burden of developing arguments” for a party that files no brief.
- Because the summons itself indicated that a mailed copy would follow the copy left at the dwelling, the court held that a jurisdictional defect was not apparent on the face of the complaint, so the burden fell on the defendant to prove defective service by a preponderance of the evidence
- The defendant did not dispute that a copy of the summons was left at his residence, arguing only that the follow-up mailing never happened, and he offered nothing beyond his own statements to prove it
- The trial court, sitting as the fact-finder, was “not obligated to credit” the defendant’s “self-serving statements, and apparently did not,” the court wrote
- On that record, the court concluded the defendant failed to overcome his burden of proving a lack of personal jurisdiction
