Regarding a Co-Defendant In A Civil Case
landlord tenant attorney New Mexico Jul 30, 2026
Location: New Mexico, United States To be clear, I am not the one getting sued. My best friend (Harper, 25NB) and my current roommate Jackson (27 FtM) are/were. Almost 7 years ago they had moved into what can only be called a slum house, and after a few months they broke the lease due to the living conditions being outright terrible (the landlord refused to fix the AC during the summer time, as an example but there were many other things). They had both been given the poor advice that if they simply ignored the debt they owed the leasing company, the debt would simply go away after the derogatory mark on their credit decayed. The leasing company apparently sold the debt to a debt collection agency after Harper threatened to sue them for the illegal living conditions of the property, and after that neither Harper or Jackson really heard anything about the debt for years. Until a few months ago. Harper received a notice in the mail that they were getting sued by the collection agency alongside Jackson. At the time, Jackson lived out of state and had not updated his address at all. So we are guessing that the agency was unable to find him to serve him his court papers. Harper has been handling the lawsuit entirely on their own, and after some phone calls to the agency, they reached a settlement agreement. I have a few questions about this situation; In regards to the letter sent to Harper to dismiss the case, there was a line that Jackson is listed for his signature as well. While he did not live in NM at the time this case was filed, he moved back here after the papers were initially served to Harper. In order for the case to be properly dismissed, does Jackson also have to sign the paperwork alongside Harper? And would he get in legal trouble for purposely not updating his address to avoid this entire situation? In the event that the dismissal goes through without Jackson's signature, would the case only be dismissed against Harper as they are the one who signed the paperwork? Or would Jackson still be in legal trouble with this debt collection agency for his side of the debt? If the above were to happen, would Harper be dragged back into litigation, or would they be in the clear and it would just be Jackson getting sued? I apologize if these are dumb questions, but I tried searching this up online and I couldn't find anything. Granted, my wording when searching this up probably is the main issue, but I would like to know in the case of further issues. Harper has informed me that they are entirely uninterested in assisting Jackson in regards to calling the debt collection agency about this, as Jackson has essentially dodged all responsibility to his side of things and left everything up to Harper to handle. I am only interested in answers as I do live with the man now, and I would like to know if my roommate will be financially stretched in the future due to a lawsuit and how I can prepare my finances for that on a personal level. Thank you all!
