Plaintiff Sues Defendant = Plaintiff will allege Facts and Law to support their Rights. This is the start of a lawsuit when the Plaintiff files a Complaint (and demands Judgment) against the Defendant.
Defendant must Answer the filed Complaint by Law. If the Defendant is not guilty they can Avoid Answering Complaint by filing “Motions.” Or, the Defendant can Defend self by replying to each allegation of Complaint and further alleges facts and law affirming their defenses.
List of Motions includes:
- Motions to Strike
- Motion to Dismiss
- Motion for more Definite Statement
Discovery includes:
The reason why Discovery is so important is because both sides use all five discovery tools at all times prior to trial to get to the evidence that will tend to prove their own allegations and undermine those of their opponent. The key to winning is knowing how to use the “discovery tools” effectively.
When the parties fight in Court this is because they did not “agree” in the (pre-trial) motions.
Thus going to Court will be a Trial which is a formal setting for both sides to present Evidence and legal Argument.
In the end the Judge will decide the case and the judgement is Final.
To learn more, go to http://www.jurisdictionary.com/
http://www.jurisdictionary.com/rule_of_law.htm
“If the law and facts are on your side and you know how to get your evidence in the record and how to cite and argue the law then you will win your case.”
If you have questions or comments I can be reached at jackiepaulson8@gmail.com
I am a “Paralegal” in Illinois.
I am also a “Security Officer” in Illinois.
Thank you for reading this post as I want to help educate others in the world of the legal profession.
Elements of a Civil Complaint
Certain sections of a complaint tend to be boilerplate language
(for example, the greeting, damages, jury demand, prayer for
relief). When looking at a complaint, sections are separate and in
this order:
•
Case caption - tells which court you are in and who the
parties are. Leaves room for the court clerk to stamp a case
number onto. Don’t put this information in column format.
The Dole case forgot the close-quotes down the middle to
cordon off the names from the court space. See the Viacom
case for a proper case caption.
•
Title of the pleading - the title here would be Complaint.
In some jurisdictions, it is called a Petition.
•
Short introduction -a typical introduction might state,
“Comes Now the plaintiff, Justin King, by and through his
attorney, and alleges:” (It can be just this short)
•
Parties - who the parties are and where they reside to show
the court it has personal jurisdiction over the parties.
•
Jurisdiction and Venue - what statute or statutes give the
court authority to hear the subject matter of the case and
that the chosen courthouse is the correct one (this is
venue).
•
Allegations or Statement of Facts - what happened. Tell the
story of the accident. Tell the story in the most succinct way possible.
Don’t skip around. Try to keep the flow so it is convincing. This is
why we LOVE computers because you can cut and paste and rearrange
paragraphs to make our client’s story more cohesive and enrapture our
audience (the judge)to want to give us what we are asking for.
•
Causes of Action - what legal theories are you asserting?
What duty did the defendant have towards plaintiff? How did
defendant breach that duty? How was plaintiff hurt by the
breach? Each cause of action is listed separately. See
Chapter 4 in the book for the facts needed to be alleged for
each cause of action.
•
Damages - what is plaintiff asking for? Take a look at the
damages request from the Dole case. It is a general
damages request, and a lot of attorneys use just that
wording in every complaint pleading they draft. Remember
some lawyers consider this boilerplate language and cut
from an old complaint pleading to paste into a new
complaint pleading. (As you can tell, been there, done that
to make life a little easier.) BUT keep in mind that depending
on the causes of action you may need to be a lot more
specific in your damages demand.
•
Jury Demand - If you want a jury, you have to ask for it.
•
Prayer for Relief - Ask the court nicely to help the plaintiff.
Commonly considered boiler plate and the Dole E.coli case is
a really good example.
•
Date when the complaint is submitted to the court
- this is especially important because there will always be a
statute of limitation, a statute of repose, etc., and time
matters to the law.
•
Attorney information and signature - this is usually done
single spaced, not double spaced. Need to remember the
attorney’s bar number, street address, city, state and zip,
phone number, and fax number. Also, who does the attorney
represent?
Pasted from <http://www.scribd.com/doc/15490013/Elements-of-a-Civil-Complaint>
Filed under: Post a day 2011 Tagged: | Complaint, Defendant, Deloitte, Discovery, Illinois, Law, Motion (legal), Motion for more definite statement, Plaintiff, Request for admissions, Request for production, Summary judgment
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