I don't know what would happen if you're in the US. This happened to me, and I'm on benefits. Rather than have the guy harrass me and continually send around bailiffs threatening to take my stuff away I ended up applying for a debt relief order, which was granted. This is like bankrupcy, only for folks with smaller debts. It protected me from all my creditors, and after the year is over all those debts will be written off. If at some point within the year I came into money it would be shared amongst my creditors, but given how poor I am, that seems an unlikely scenario.

I was being sued by an ex friend who sided with another ex friend in a disagreement. (The details don't matter.) He decided to sue me for money he contributed to my husband's memorial. As you can imagine, this was not something I'd ever expected... he even had the cheek to say in his legal papers that "he had considered himself a friend of the defendant" and "was hurt to have to sue the widow of a friend." Of course, now I know he was never a friend. And I hope he feels at least a twinge of guilt that he hounded his friend's widow to bankrupcy... he was the final nail in the coffin.