How should I handle this issue when I go to court.?

I love the declare bankruptcy comment. Bankruptcy costs about $2000 to go through and obviously you don't have that kind of money. Now onto your concerns. What happens when you default on credit cards? The primary lender will try to collect for 6 months, then they will charge off the account and fraudulently sell your info to a third party debt collector. Why is this fraud, because nowhere in your Terms of Agreement does the primary lender give themselves the power to sell your debt to a third party. Why don't they have this power? Google "Privity of Contract" which means that a third party cannot insert themselves in between the original two parties on the contract. This is illegal and the third party scum bag collector is committing fraud when trying to collect this debt from you. Of course, everyone including the judges and the lawyers all pretend that this is okay, right up until you fight them and you can win easily.

You were sued 10 years ago, they probably got a default judgement against you, but with a default judgement, they usually only have two options to go after your money, a bank levy or wage garnishment. It depends on your state and even county as to which one or both they will do. Here in Missouri, they can do both, but they will usually only do wage garnishment. But here's the kicker, with your lack of resources, I don't know if you've been holding a bank account or not, but they probably didn't do a bank levy or you would have noticed. If they tried to do wage garnishment, they can only garnish your wages after you make a certain amount (30 hours times the minimum wage). It doesn't sound like you even made that much. So you felt no affects from the default judgement since you had no money for them to come after.

Now 10 years later, they want to renew the default judgement so that they can keep going after you for another 10 years. Now in civil court, people get this really wrong. The judge only cares about the law, they don't give a crap about some poor person coming in and wanting to tell their side of the story. You may as well not show if all you're going to do is this. You have no money and hell, you don't even have a place to live. But if you want to fight them, you can win, but it'll take a small amount of work. The laws favor the debtor not the collector who is committing fraud by suing you for Breach of Contract, they have no contract with you. You first need to know what to do when you walk into civil court. You'll need to provide your Answer and Interrogatories to the court as the first thing that you do. You don't even need to be there in person at the time of the court date, you can give these two documents to the clerk of courts beforehand, she will stamp your copy as well as a copy that you give to the court and another copy for the plaintiff's lawyer. If you need help with your case, just email me and I'll provide the framework that you need to defend yourself. I've been sued for Breach of Contract and I won without ever having to argue my case before the judge, the plaintiff's lawyer dismissed my case with prejudice, which means that they committed misconduct by filing the suit against me in the first place. If you don't want to fight them, there is no much they can do to you as long as you have no bank account or make less that $218 a week for the next ten years.

Did you forget interest? I am surprised that in 10 years, only $500 in interest and penalties were racked up.

You're obviously broke with no income and a lot of debt. Declare bankruptcy.