A large number of claimants turned up at the civil division of the Corporate Area Resident Magistrate's Court this month, seeking to recover large sums of money they had paid to get jobs in the United States of America.

Many of them said they responded to advertisements they saw in the newspaper outlining various jobs they could get abroad.

Despite several trips to the woman's office in downtown Kingston, they said they did not get the jobs, nor did the woman refund the money.

Reports were made to the police and Admarie Ashman was arrested and charged with fraud, arising from the alleged scam to get jobs for the claimants.

But some of the claimants explained that when they went to the criminal court, they were advised that they could also take out a civil suit against Ashman. Many of them filed the suit and served the claim forms on Ashman while she was in custody.

Failure to attend court

Ashman did not attend the court for the civil suits and the Resident Magistrate entered default judgement against her.

"I did not know I could get judgement against her although she was not in court," one of the claimants said.

Although Ashman is in custody facing criminal charges, she has a responsibility to respond to the civil suit. If she cannot attend court, she can get an agent or a lawyer to represent her.

The judge has the power to enter judgement against a defendant who is served with the claim form outlining what the person is being sued for, but does not attend court or respond to it. The order made against such a defendant is known as a default judgement.

However, a default judgement can be set aside if the defendant can give the judge reasonable explanation why he/she did not respond to the suit within the specified time, which is 14 days.