Werge Law Group is excited to announce a big win for our client. In a business deal-gone-bad, our client ended up not responding to a complaint and having a $50,000 judgment entered against him and his business way back in 2002.
Twenty years later, and after the creditor sold its judgment to an individual doing collections work (who later became a lawyer in 2017), the accruing interest caused the judgment to balloon to more than $200,000. However, the judgment was set to expire in April of 2022 due to the 20-year statute of limitations.
Pursuant to Rule 54(h), a judgment can be revived for an additional 20-year period, so long as the proper steps are taken, including again serving the defendant with a copy of a court order and giving the defendant an opportunity to respond before the expiration of the 20-year period.
The Plaintiff timely moved for revival of the judgment in February, but then claimed to have only served our client on April 1, 2022. Under Rule 54(h), our client had 14-days to respond, through April 15, 2022. But before the end of the day on April 15, 2022, the Court entered an order reviving the judgment for an additional 20-year period – all the way through 2042. This was a devastating development for our client.
It was around this time that Werge Law Group was retained as counsel. After reviewing the case, we identified that the original judgment order was signed on April 17, 2002, but entered nunc pro tunc (Latin for “as if it had been” entered) to April 12, 2002. We quickly filed a motion for reconsideration of the revival order, identifying that the judgment was void because the plaintiff did not serve our client sufficiently in advance. In what we believe to be a matter of first impression, the Court agreed, citing to Robbins v. A.B. Goldberg, 185 P.3d 794, (Colo. 2008), and finding the responsibility for the delay “lays at the feet of Plaintiff.” Accordingly, the Court reversed its prior decision and vacated the judgment in its entirety.
We were pleased to obtain such a great result for our client – after twenty years, no longer having to live under the threat of enforcement. If you have a commercial judgment in need of enforcement, or if a judgment has been entered against you related to a business obligation, Werge Law Group would be happy to speak with you about potential representation.
O’Kelly v. Riggs, Case No. 2001CV000080 (Dist. Colo. JeffCo. June 2, 2022, Lochary, J.).