Uncontested civil judgement

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I am being sued in civil court for violation of a non-compete and misappropriation of intellectual property. I do not plan to respond to the suit since I cannot afford an attorney and the plaintiff has unlimited resources. If I do not contest the suit and am found liable for x amount of damages, can I turn right around and file for bankruptcy and have the judgement discharged?

You have at least two issues here:

1. Inside or outside of the bk, this "creditor" will have the right to seek an injunction against you for any further violation of the non-complete agreement. Most of the time I have my clients simply stipulate that they will not violate the agreement in the future - assuming they were violating it. (Typically they are but there may be a legal issue as to whether or not the scope of the agreement is unreasonable either in length or size of the locale - but no one can afford to litigate this.)

2. Your bigger problem is the "misappropriation of intellectual property". If you do not defend (and win) this issue, you may be facing a non-dischargeability complaint under 11 USC 523(a)(4) and (a)(6) - the (a)(6) claim is the stronger argument. If you file bk (Chapter 7 or 11) the "creditor" will have a short window in which to bring an action within the bk to ask that its claim be non-dischargeable. If you qualify for a Chapter 13 you will close the door to this type of argument as it relates to a "willful and malicious" injury [(a)(6)] but may still have to deal with the "breach of fiduciary duty" [(a)(4)] claim. (See 11 USC 1328(a)(2)).

You really need to meet with an attorney who has handled these types of issues. Not every bk attny understands the ramifications of non-compete agreements in the context of a bk.

Des.

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Your post got deleted because you didnt answer the question. This is not a debt issue...there is no money owed. They are being sued for breach of contract.

So, Soaplady, you mean to say that though the OP receives a summons from the courthouse, he/she shouldn't answer it? Just because he/she is filing bankruptcy means that he/she shouldn't respond to the summons? I never mentioned that the OP owed money. Please retrieve the original post so that members can see whether or not I mentioned about "money owed" to the OP.