CA Small Claims case, already won
I’m in California and already won my small claims case as the plaintiff, but now I’m trying to enforce the judgment and could use advice from anyone familiar with collections/judgment enforcement. Almost one year ago, a man hit my parked car at night and initially acted cooperative. He gave me his name and number, claimed he was “famous” (he does have a decent social media following and looking his name up showed consistent recognition, tbf), and promised he’d pay for the damages himself. He also claimed he didn’t know his insurance information at the time of the accident, but of course, I took the bait /:
For months, I tried handling it privately through texts/calls. He kept stalling, making promises, and never actually paying. Eventually I filed in small claims court. He was properly served at his home (took me forever to find his address online, as well as his birthday for locating and identifying him for the dmv accident report), showed up to court, and judgment was entered in my favor for $8,500.
After the 30-day waiting period passed and he still didn’t pay, I scheduled a Judgment Debtor Examination and subpoenaed him to provide insurance information from the date of the accident, financial/account information and whatever other relevant documents/assets. Part of why I requested the insurance information is because I became concerned he may have tried to report his own vehicle as a hit-and-run since he mentioned the idea to do so to me after the accident, but he kept switching his story up.
Unfortunately, the sheriff’s department failed to serve him in time before the exam hearing, despite having about 3 weeks to do it. They only attempted service once at his residence. But during this time, he and I were still in communication and he told me directly he would attend the hearing so that he can pay me there in front of the judge, something about because I just can’t be trusted so he’s not taking any chances on me somehow getting over on him. Idk…
I’ve now refiled for another debtor exam date and requested service again. This time I plan to follow up with the sheriff’s department constantly to confirm service attempts are actually happening. I also filed a request to correct the Entry of Judgment because the original judgment did not have the box checked indicating the case arose from a motor vehicle accident. From what I understand, if corrected, I may be able to submit paperwork through the DMV to suspend his license until the judgment is paid. The evidence I provided during the case had a police report, DMV accident report, and photos of the vehicle damage, all of which will be used to make the decision to correct if the debtor fails to object or agree within ten days after receiving my request in the mail.
Honestly, this entire situation completely derailed my life financially. Losing my car eventually caused me to lose my job because I couldn’t reliably commute anymore. I’ve been surviving on unemployment and thankfully my landlord has the patience and ability to allow my rent to be late every month since losing my car. Literally have been barely scraping to get by.
At one point, before going to court, I posted publicly about the situation on social media and it gained a lot of attention. He definitely saw it and started accusing me of defamation and slander, so I deleted the posts to avoid things escalating further and getting messier than it already was.
At this point I’m mainly looking for advice on:
- best ways to enforce a California small claims judgment
- how effective DMV license suspension actually is (this was something that has already been done but somehow resolved by him after I filed the dmv accident report and he did not provide his insurance information which was a requirement since damages exceeded $1,000. He texted me and asked me to amend the report and change the date to “make things easier for him”)
- whether anyone has experience collecting a judgement from someone trying to avoid paying, I know it happens often and how common it is for people to avoid it all together. I am hoping my consistent approach will pay off soon/:
Any advice is appreciated.