Dismissal with Prejudice

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sevans92685

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Hi.
Last Thursday we were in court where the plaintiff decided to dismiss a case against us with prejudice. We agreed to settle for 990 dollars and the judge filed the dismissal. We received the court paperwork of the dismissal with prejudice and then emailed the defendant saying we would send the check for 990 when we received a copy of the dismissal notice from him, the plaintiff. The plaintiff wrote back in the email saying he has asked to set aside judgement and set case for trial again, and papers will be received today?

Can he do that?

Should we just pay the 990 since we got the filings from the court, even though we didnt' receive a paper from him?

This has been a very frustrating experience.
 
Did you receive the papers? If this was actually done I'd consider this a remarkably foolish act, absent knowing anything more than you wrote about the situation. Unless substantial new evidence has come to light, such as fraud on your part, I don't think any judge would be amused at all about the plaintiff wasting everyone's time - especially the court's.
 
The papers have still not been sent....We emailed him saying he is not agreeing to our settlement and we are going to seek legal counsel and fees for responding to the motion. Do we need to do anything else? We are still willing to send the 990 as he agreed upon.

The odd thing I remember is that there was no settlement written out anywhere, and the judge didn't ask for terms of settlement. However we did receive papers from court saying it was dismissed and we still want to honor our verbal agreement with defendant and send him his agreed up settlement amount. What is the next step?\

And he has still not responded to our email
 
If this was me - and you have to make your own decision - I'd not waste any more time on a case where a judicial dismissal was filed, with prejudice. If this person wants to try to reopen the case, then it's his problem. You don't just write a judge to reopen a case if it was dismissed, with prejudice, and filed with the clerk of the court. Time is money and every minute of mine wasted is money flying out the window. If he wishes to file a motion, you'll be notified and can respond at that point. I wouldn't send money and, as I said if this was me, I'd be inclined to deduct any amount that results from a needless waste of time. For an amount that is a small claims case, it seems a frivolous use of the court's time and resources as well.

With regard to the terms of the settlement, if it was in small claims in front of a judge then there may be an oral recording. In a higher court a settlement agreement would have probably been filed with the court. Good luck.
 
thanks for the reply

We did receive the motion to set aside, yet it contains no reason, other then he claims we rescinded on our offer as we left the court, which we absolutely did not!..We emailed the plaintiff upon receipt of the courts dismissal notice and immediately offered to pay the 990 to him in an email.

I must stress when the judge dismissed the case with prejudice, there was no settlement terms announced in court and there was no official agreement. What do you make of that?
 
Perhaps the judge ruled in your favor and had heard enough from the plaintiff. I can't tell you anything except that you're telling me that you have a judgment in your favor dismissing the plaintiff's case, filed with the clerk of the court. As such, that's what it is.

Whenever I had a settlement agreed with the other party, it was drafted by one attorney, signed by both parties and filed with the court. In small claims courts the rules and procedures can be very informal and vary. If both of you didn't settle on the record before the judge, as I was assuming, then it's possible that the case was dismissed entirely. After hearing what appears to be nonsense the plaintiff may be focusing on now, perhaps the judge heard enough.

From what I can see - and it's nothing more than your representation - it would appear you have the upper hand. The plaintiff has an uphill battle to climb and it doesn't appear he has a great chance of succeeding. You might as well let him spin his wheels.
 
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