Location: NJ, USA
A strange situation. We live in NJ and after receiving very concerning calls/voicemails (in a very authoritative voice from someone claiming to work for a law firm) on both parents cell phones about their adult child’s alleged involvement in a motor vehicle accident 18 months ago (child was adult at that time as well), NJ superior court summons was delivered at home mailbox for parents. It requires a response within 35 days.
We looked up online that the person calling and delivering papers on our home address is a Private Investigator working for the law firm mentioned in the papers as representing plaintiffs that claim personal injury.
First, to be clear, the claim is bogus about involvement of our child in said accident. We have had full conversation about that in the family to be certain. Upon reviewing the papers delivered by the private investigator of the plaintiff’s law firm, it appears that the typed address for the defendant at the bottom in the summons where it was supposed to be delivered was struck off by hand someone (most likely the PI as the handwriting matches the address he wrote on the envelope left in our mailbox) and they wrote (handwritten) our address instead. The crash report included in the summons includes the defendant’s name that matches our child’s name, but everything else about that defendant (residence address, driver’s license, car details) are all not related to our child at all.
Bottomline, other than the name matching , the crash investigation report has no relation to or indication of our child being part of anything remotely close to it. Now we have been dragged into something that we have no connection with, but not sure how to respond and clarify (to whom?) that this is the situation. There is no official government document (summons or crash investigation report) that links our child (other than same name) to the incident but the plaintiff law firm thinks differently.
We had already told the PI when he called that this is not linked our child although he wouldn’t listen to us.
Please share any guidance you can provide to handle this as efficiently (time and money) as possible. Can we ignore this since this is a case of mistaken identity?
Thank you.