 |
 |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|
|
|
|
Lifestar Response of Alabama12/3/2004
easures." The complaint charged that the two employees breached their duty to provide emergency medical treatment in various specified respects and that Care had failed to employ and dispatch properly qualified personnel. The summons directed service on Care at its South Perry Street address, to Branch's attention. Deputy Glenn Mannich of the Montgomery Sheriff's Department delivered the summons and complaint to the Perry Street address on January 7, 2003, and Karen Robertson, employed by Lifestar as its human resource manager, accepted the service and signed Deputy Mannich's "service log." At the hearing conducted on July 22, 2003, on Lifestar's motion to set aside the default judgment, Deputy Mannich testified that he had served "eight or ten papers" on Care Ambulance Service at the Perry Street address during the preceding four years and that Robertson was "one of the people that does accept the papers for the company." He confirmed that she had previously signed for the papers on behalf of "Care Ambulance Service of Alabama, Inc."
In an affidavit dated July 16, 2003, in support of Lifestar's motion to set aside the default judgment and its objection to the plaintiff's motion to amend the judgment, Robertson stated that she had no personal recollection of the delivery of the summons and complaint but stated:
"If I was personally delivered a copy of the Summons and Complaint in the Lemuel lawsuit, I would not have read the Complaint, nor noted the identity of the person or company being served. I would have given the Complaint to Vanessa Hill, our billing clerk, to forward to the home office of Lifestar along with other business documents usually transmitted to our home office."
Lifestar has not undertaken to account otherwise for the disposition of the summons and complaint, although its attorney acknowledged at the July 22 hearing: "I'm not going to say the ball didn't get dropped here as far as wherever this suit went," and Lifestar states in its principal brief to this Court that " s far as can be determined, the Complaint served upon Karen Robertson was transmitted to the home office of Lifestar, but from there it is unclear as to its routing." (Lifestar's brief, p. 39.)
No appearance was filed on behalf of Care, and the plaintiff's attorney, Timothy C. Halstrom, applied for a default judgment. On May 16, 2003, Judge Price signed an order scheduling "a hearing on default damages" for May 28. According to Judge Price's subsequent order of July 31, 2003, notice of that hearing was issued by the circuit clerk to Care at its Perry Street address. (The order scheduling that hearing bears the notation at its bottom "cc: Timothy Halstrom, Esq.; Lawrence S. Branch, Pro Se.") No one appeared at the May 28 hearing except Halstrom, Ms. Lemuel, McDonald, and Dallas Johnson, an expert witness. Testimony was given by Ms. Lemuel, McDonald, and Johnson, and numerous exhibits were introduced. At the conclusion of the hearing Judge Price entered a default judgment in favor of the plaintiff in the amount of $5,000,000.
On June 3, 2003, Halstrom received a telephone call from an individual identifying himself as Bob Fraulich, a representative of Lifestar. According to Halstrom's representations made to Judge Price without objection at the July 22 hearing on the motion to set aside the default judgment, Fraulich was calling from New York, was aware of the default judgment against Care, and explained that "'Care is not that company. We are Lifestar Response Corporation Alabama, Inc., doing business as Care Ambulance Service. So you have got the wrong one, you can't collect the judgment.'" In its brief to this Court, Lifestar states, "Actually what was said by Lifestar's r
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 Alabama Personal Injury Attorneys
Personal Injury Lawyers
|
| |
to fill out a simple form to connect to Personal Injury Lawyers in your area.
|
|