It happened again. The pesky problem of keeping business records up to date with the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office resulted in a default judgment of $9.7 million, which mushroomed to over $11 million by the time the successful plaintiff got around to collecting on the judgment. And all of this because the defendant company had moved and had more than one Certificate of Authority and registered agent on file with the Missouri Secretary of State. The Court of Appeals ruled that the registered agent was properly served, though the registered agent failed to forward the lawsuit to the defendant’s correct address.
It is a simple matter to confirm records with the Secretary of State’s Office, and it is something that we do on a regular basis for our clients such that these types of problems do not arise. You can either deal with these matters yourself, hopefully before a judgment is entered against your company, or you can rely on us to keep your company in compliance. Either way, the smart money is in taking care of the little things.