Am I going to jail ? (long)

I have to go to court this morning. I am representing myself in a civil action and have a motion for relief from an order on the dockett. Here is the break down:

Plaintiff files complaint on a prior judgement 9 years and 11 months after such judgement. It is not served until 10 years 1 month. I move for dismissal based upon the statute of limitations:

Notice the limits other than ten years.

Plaintiff filed for an award of attorneys’ fees in response to the motion to dismiss:

On first hearing of the motion to dismiss Judge Stewart did not make a decision and stated that if she were to rule that day she would be inclined in my favor. However, she took it under advisement and it came before Judge Corbett. Judge Corbett denied the motion and carried a motion for summary judgement. Upon reading the judgement I found that there was an order to pay $1,042 in attorneys fees merged with the judgement. WTF? It was never made known that the motion for attprneys fees was even being heard. The order said pay up in thirty days.

I immediately filed the motion for relief from the order but the next session was after the thirty days to pay the order to the plaintiff.

The law says in order to award attorneys fees the motion to dismiss must be completely absent of justciable issue. If Judge Stewart was unable to decide on first hearing the motion then how could that be ? If it was completely absent justiciable issue don’t you think she would have noticed?

At any rate, I will plead for relief tommorrow and short of that I am in civil contempt. I don’t have the money. Am I going to jail?

Jail for a civil offence ?

Jail for not paying a debt ?

At the least I would have thought the court would have a lot more options than imprisonments for debt.

Well, IANAL and IANAJudge, but I beilieve that payment is separate from the judgement, i.e. the judge orders you to pay $x, you take the judgement to the clerk and at that point you can arrange payment options, like spreading it out over a few months, etc.

I’m not sure what the debate is.

But I can give you some excellent advice: consult an attorney licensed to practice in your jurisdiction.

I don’t understand why you’ve been ordered to pay money. Was the judgment for unpaid child support? Anyway, if you’ve been ordered by the court to pay money, and you don’t have the money, then you better go find a lawyer.

And by the way, in many jurisdictions, the statute of limitations is stopped upon the filing of an action not upon service. Perhaps that’s the case in your jurisdiction and perhaps that’s why you lost your motion. I really have no idea, but it may very well be cheaper in the end to hire an attorney. Sorry if this sounds nasty, but it doesn’t sound like you’re doing yourself much of a favor by going pro se.

(standard disclaimer about legal advice)