Obtaining judgment by default is becoming more and more frustrating.
When time is of the essence, either in an eviction or collection matter the last thing a litigant needs to happen is to have a clerk send back paperwork because some clerk doesn’t like your military affidavit.
The affidavit requires a party to show facts sufficient to state the defendant is not in the military.
I’ve had tenants served in hand and landlords swear oaths that a person works at a certain place and that has not been good enough for some clerks.
Most recently, I ran into a problem when I had the defendant’s date of birth and but not his social security number. I obtained a military affidavit from the Department of Defense with such information only to have it sent back to me by a clerk.
The clerk told me that I needed a military affidavit obtained with a social security number. I asked the clerk where in the practice book that was required. The clerk’s response was that we are at war and she was not about to default someone who maybe serving our country without a military affidavit obtained through the use of a social security number.
The clerk then told me that I could obtain default with the date of birth of the defendant and some other information as in where the defendant worked.
I had to play google detective for an hour to obtain more information on the defendant.
I repeat there is no uniform rule about what a clerk will and won’t accept for a military affidavit in Connecticut. What’s good enough for one clerk may not be good enough for another clerk.
In the absence of a uniform rule on this, landlords and businesses need to obtain the social security numbers of their tenants and/or clients.