Nonpayment for services - Georgia

[timbob58]

My wife is a physical therapist who provided services for a child whose parent was directly reimbursed by their insurance carrier and did not provide payment to my wife. She brought a claim against him in small claims court (magistrate court in the county where service was provided in Georgia), defendant didn't show for initial hearing, but later responded with a lawyer-authored document saying he wasn't personally served with the complaint/summons (it was given to his spouse) and the complaint "fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted". He is asking for relief and legal fees.

We need to figure out if she needs to bring witnesses or anything else to next week's hearing - the claim is for $480 which doesn't allow for attorney fees.

Her complaint basically says that she provided services and wasn't paid. She has documentation that the services took place (forms signed and dated by workers at the Day Care where the therapy was performed) and that his insurance company paid him for these specific treatments. Does that seem to be adequate or should she need to call witnesses (the spouse who was delivered the original summons?). The hearing is next Tuesday, so it is probably too late to summon witnesses through the court.

This should be an open and shut case, but I don't want my wife to get tripped up in technicalities that she doesn't understand.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Theresagail]

No, she just needs to let the judge know she performed services (have her documents) and she has never been paid for them. Just plead your case and everything should be fine

 

[timbob58]

Rule Nisi?

Excellent - thanks so much for the reply!

I have one more question please. Within the defendant's response, the demands conclude with this item:

"Therefore, Defendant demands:
....
[the first 3 items are to deny the claim and demand grant fees/expenses + damages]
...
(d) That a Rule Nisi issue requiring the Plaintiff to show cause why the relief demanded by the Defendant should not be granted."

I presume that this will not come into effect unless the defendant prevails, but don't have a clue what it is talking about. It seems to be asking something of my wife and my guess is that this clause was included to try and intimidate her with legalese. Can someone please paraphrase this in plain English?

Thanks again............

 

[presutin]

rule nisi is an order to show cause. In plain english it means that the rule is to be held absolute unless the party to whom it applies can show why it should not be so. I hope this helps!