Trials, Civil (U.S. Law)

Civil law is also referred to as procedural law; it is the system of legal jurisprudence providing the means and methods by which individuals may legally engage with one another in order to formally address disagreements, and enforce the right of the individual to ask for redress of wrongs (materially or by other means). Civil law provides an efficient, formal, systematic, and impartial means of dispute resolution in a public courtroom setting. The goal of a civil trial is to discern the truth of an event by employing and examining the best possible evidence. Civil procedures set forth the requirements for conducting a civil trial, and include laws of evidence to set guidelines for the presentation of witnesses, means of appropriate documentation, and presentation of items of evidence.

The highest Court in America, the United States Supreme Court, has judicial oversight in all matters pertaining to court proceedings, and it stipulates that all procedural rules in the legal system must be consistent with the tenets set forth in the U. S. Constitution, particularly as regards the due processes clauses specified in the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Due process means that everyone in a civil action is entitled to have his/her story heard in an impartial manner.

The American judicial system is said to be an adversarial one, that is, a system in which the lawsuit occurs between the individuals engaged in the disagreement (or, more accurately, their attorneys). The attorneys are responsible for the case and evidentiary presentations, and the judge acts to guarantee the objectivity and fair outcome of the trial. In American civil trials, the judge is an active participant in the trial, examining the evidence and inquiring as to the factual presentations in the case.

Before the start of a jury trial, civil proceedings involve a number of pre-trial pleadings before a professional judge, who makes decisions as to the factual and evidentiary presentations in the case. This pretrial hearing period is then followed by the commencement of the jury trial. In the American civil trial system, juries are composed of lay people, not specially trained to act as officers of the court. As such, they need to have the facts of the case presented in a manner, and at a level of comprehension, that they can understand. They are available only for limited periods of time, as jury summonses pull individuals away from their normal daily business. As a result, trials are conducted in an intensive, focused fashion over the shortest possible period of time in which the evidence can be fairly presented and witnesses can offer their testimony (expert and otherwise). All evidence to be presented must be made available before the start of the trial; it is assembled and offered during the discovery phase of the proceedings. If new evidence is uncovered after the start of a trial, it may necessitate another hearing.

In civil law proceedings, the jury hears the evidence, convenes to make a decision based on presentation of fact, and offers a recommendation based on their conclusions to the judge. The judge makes all decisions regarding matters of law.

In order to be a party to a lawsuit (either plaintiff or defendant), the individual must have the capacity and legal standing to sue another person (or another group of individuals). Minor children and those judged to be mentally incompetent to participate in a lawsuit must be represented by a law guardian who can act on their behalf, and in their best interests.

Those who are directly affected by the outcome of a case are called the parties to an action, and they are generally the only ones bound by its outcome. However, there are situations in which a large group of individuals may be impacted by a specific controversy. In those cases, a class-action lawsuit may be the result. This is a situation in which a smaller number of individuals sue a corporation or a system in order to justify the right to legal relief of a much larger group. All parties to the class action are bound by the outcome. Recent examples of such class actions include an action in which a small group of individuals affected by the leakage of silicone breast implants represented the entire population of individuals who had experienced complications subsequent to silicone breast implants made by a specific manufacturer. All received financial damages as a result of the finding on behalf of the plaintiffs in the suit. In a much smaller example, a group of inmates in a maximum security penitentiary in the state of New Mexico filed a class action suit on behalf of all inmates in maximum and super maximum security facilities in the state regarding the conditions of their confinement, and their experienced limited access to mental health services. As a result of a negotiated agreement, all inmates received greater access to mental health services and improved living conditions, among other benefits.

Lawsuits often take several years for successful resolution. Because of this, the civil legal system provides for the imposition of provisional remedies in order to ensure that the outcome does not become superfluous by the time the case is decided in the courts. Provisional remedies constitute a sort of guarantee to the plaintiff that any obtained future judgment against the defendant will be meaningful. Provisional remedies are generally given if it is the opinion of the court that the plaintiff has a strong factual case, and is likely to garner a positive outcome. Some remedies ensure that the funds required to satisfy an eventual judgment, or to pay court costs, will remain available until the conclusion of the trial. In this case, the funds or real property involved may be "attached" by the court: an officer of the court will seize the funds or property in question and hold them until the conclusion of the case.

A lawsuit is generally divided into two phases, the pleading stage and the trial stage. At the pleading stage, the parties give notice of their claims, defenses, and proposed evidence. At the trial stage, their legal counsel presents their cases of fact before the jury. This is typically accomplished by the production and promulgation of material evidence, and the spoken (sometimes written or videotaped) testimony of witnesses and subject matter experts.

The pleading portion of the case involves the presentation of the formal written documents by which the parties make their claims. Pleadings specify the nature of the argument, they state each part's understanding of the facts of the case, they clarify the issues to be decided, and they provide a permanent record of the outcome and decisions in the case.

A civil jury trial is only mandated when there are disputes as to matters of fact. When cases can be adjudicated based strictly on matters of law, the party concerned can request permission to make a motion to the court to either dismiss the case or to request a summary judgment that can be issued immediately by a sitting judge.

Quite often, a pretrial conference or pretrial hearing is held in which the judge will either try to settle the case out of court, or try to narrow the focus of the issues to be presented at trial. As the civil trial process is so protracted in the United States, there is a great effort made to settle cases without having to go to trial. Generally, one party will make a motion, in an effort to resolve the dispute. When this occurs, both parties appear before a judge who receives all paperwork from each party specific to the motion. No witnesses are heard at motions, and the attorneys each present their specific arguments. In the matter of a request for a summary judgment, the judge is asked to decide whether there exists a matter of material dispute, or whether the preponderance of evidence is on one side of the case. If there is a material issue of dispute, the motion will be denied and the case will proceed eventually to trial. If the finding is the former, the judge can issue a final, legally binding, judgment.

During a civil trial, the attorneys for each party (plaintiff and defendant) make opening statements to the jury in which they specify what they believe to be the central issues of the case, and outline what they plan to prove in matters of fact during the course of the trial. The plaintiff's case is presented first: witnesses are called, questioned and cross-examined by the attorney for the defendant. When the plaintiff's case presentation has been concluded, the defense attorney will call and question his/her witnesses, who can then be cross-examined by the attorney for the plaintiff.

After all witnesses have given their testimony and been examined, and all evidence has been offered and explained, the attorneys for each side make closing arguments to the jury, in which they again present their interpretation of the case facts and the meaning of the evidence as it most positively impacts their client. The judge then instructs the jury on the applicable law. The jury retires to convene for private deliberation on the outcome of the factual case. When it reaches a verdict, the jury returns to the courtroom and the verdict is read in open court.

SEE ALSO Evidence; Frye standard; Trials, criminal (U.S. law); Trials, international.