Whenever a court action is filed against you or whenever you think a court action might been filed against you, don’t take any chances and don’t rely upon what your spouse might say about the action, even if it is in writing. Many times clients will come to me and say that their spouse has filed a complaint about divorce against them but they are not going to go forward with it. This information is not reliable and often times can be a setup. In the recent case of Abercrombie v. Abercrombie NO. 2015-CP-00786-COA (Decided 6/14/16), the husband filed suit for divorce in Mississippi, but then texted his wife that he instructed his lawyer to dismiss the case. After misleading his wife, he proceeded to obtain a default judgment of divorce. The wife appealed without a lawyer and without establishing a record in the trial court and claimed that Mississippi did not have jurisdiction (it probably didn’t) and that her husband had misled her into thinking the complaint was dismissed. The Court of Appeals ruled against her, finding that she had not made a record in the trial court. The moral is, don’t take anyone’s word for it; check the court records and protect yourself on the court record. http://courts.ms.gov/Images/Opinions/CO112881.pdf
