Do not sue the wrong person

Do not sue Ali when Ahmad owes you the money

In reality, you will find some people who have chased the wrong debtor. It is impressive to look at the similarities. There is a mountain of them. Unless you are careful, you may sue the wrong person.

Why? What’s the problem?

Thousands of people sue someone -- or some legal entity – that is simply not involved ! It may take a long time to find that out. It may cost them thousands of Ringgit to find out. And it is all money lost. They cannot get back a sen.

If you are handling the legal action yourself -- and that is what we are talking about -- then make sure you go after the right debtor. If you start on the wrong foot, even if you bring in a lawyer later, he probably cannot fix things. You will have to start all over.

Here are some of the ‘people’ you can sue:

An individual. Ali bin Ahmad or Ahmad bin Ali ? You sold the person something, or did the person some service, for an agreed amount of money. And that person did not pay. Right. Go for it! Put that person’s name on the summons.

A sole proprietor. A sole proprietor may have a trading name: Ali trading as Restaurant Cantek forget it. Just go after the person behind it -- the individual. Put his name on the summons.

A partnership. Dangerous waters. There can be two partners, or twenty -- or sometimes thousands (as in the big accounting firms). You probably only dealt with one of the partners. Or even just someone who works for the partnership. But someone there owes you money. The safe thing to do is sue everyone in sight: all the partners as a group, and each of them individually, and also the guy you actually dealt with (if he is not a partner and already on the list anyway). That way you are covered. No one who might be responsible (or own something you can seize later) can wriggle out of it. you can do it all on one summons.

A company. If you are sure that you have really been dealing with a company as such, then sue that. A company has a life of its own, legally. It is like a person who cannot die, even if the directors die (they are just replaced by other directors). It is true the you can kill (liquidate) a company, but you do not do it by killing the people who run it. Legally, a company is very real. It can sue and be sued. The company itself can owe you money, no matter how the people who work for it may come and go.

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