Temporarily Stopping a Lawsuit for Medical Reasons If the entity prosecuting a lawsuit or the entity defending a lawsuit becomes unable to do the necessary work in that lawsuit due to medical reasons: What is the proper way to let the court know? Send the judge a letter explaining the medical reason? Notify the court the party is physically incapable? Ask the court to halt proceedings until the party has resumed their health? Or, what? Exactly how much of one's medical history must be shared to halt a case for medical reasons? ---So, does one do a continuance for each thing pending and is there a limit on how long a continuance can be?
You may file a motion for a continuance (here is a sample help page). You have to provide as much information as is required to persuade the judge to grant the continuance. Nobody knows exactly how much information that is, and probably only your lawyer (I assume you are doing this yourself) would have a reasonable idea. Simply saying &quot;I can't cope&quot; is insufficient, and something that implies an open-ended delay (&quot;Can we put this on hold until they discover a cure?&quot;) will not suffice.
What remedies are therein the United States? I would imagine that the witness could be prosecuted for perjury. My guess is that the plaintiff could prosecute the witness for the lost damages. Are there any other remedies like reopening the original trial or declaring a mistrial so that the plaintiff could sue the (deep-pocketed) defendant, or would this be double jeopardy? Perjury prosecutions are like unicorns. They are rumored to exist but are almost never seen. A prosecutor would be exceedingly unlikely to bring charges in such a case, but it might not hurt to ask. Even if the criminal prosecution prevailed, however, the defeated plaintiff would be no better off, or might get out of pocket court costs as restitution at most. You could request that the witness be sanctioned for contempt. But, this leaves the loser in the original case no better off unless the judge made the highly unusual decision to award compensatory damages as a contempt sanction. Similarly, if you have reason to believe that the attorney knew that the testimony offered was false, that would be grounds to grieve the lawyer which could result in the lawyer's suspension or disbarment, but that is very difficult to prove and again would not advance the unjustly defeated plaintiff's cause. Assuming that the time to move for a retrial (usually two weeks) expired when the new evidence was discovered, you could move to set aside the verdict (Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60 or the equivalent state rule). The deadline for such motions based upon fraud by an adverse party is usually six months. Sometimes an independent action to set aside the verdict for fraud on the court could also be brought (sometimes within two or three years), which is an uphill battle, but probably the best option if all other deadlines have expired. The witness probably has absolute immunity from civil liability outside that court case for the testimony offered, so a civil action suing the witness for lost damages would be dismissed. The doctrine of double jeopardy does not apply, but a similar doctrine called "res judicata" (a.k.a. "claim preclusion") prohibits retrying a case that was tried on the merits between the same parties, if it has become a final order. So, filing a new case is ruled out assuming that no appeals were filed within the deadline for doing so. And, even if the deadline for filing an appeal has not lapsed, it probably wouldn't prevail because the key new evidence wouldn't be in the record. It would be better to file to set aside the judgment in a motion and to appeal if that motion was denied.
A case can be &quot;dismissed&quot; at (most) any time (however, the further along in the process a case is, the less likely a judge will allow a case to be dismissed without very good reason). A case can be dismissed with or without &quot;prejudice&quot;, which in this legal context means essentially &quot;finality&quot;. A case dismissed with prejudice cannot be brought again, while a case dismissed without prejudice can be refiled. (Compare the criminal law concept of &quot;double jeopardy&quot;, though as phoog correctly notes, &quot;double jeopardy&quot; only applies in criminal trials, while prejudice can be applied in both civil and criminal courts). Many cases are dismissed without looking at the evidence (or even having the evidence admitted to the record); this is called &quot;summary judgement&quot; or &quot;judgement as a matter of law&quot;. There are generally three cases when this happens: First, if the prosecution or plaintiff (i.e. the party bringing accusations) has &quot;failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted&quot;, i.e. asked for something the court cannot grant. Second, is if the defendant can show, that even if everything alledged by the plaintiff is true, that the necessarily elements of the crime or offense have not been proven. Third, is if there are no facts in dispute, and only a disagreement on interpreting the law.
It's a gray area. You won't know for certain until a case is tried by a court. Regulatory bodies are notoriously assertive on the matter of jurisdiction. If there is a gray area, they often assert jurisdiction first, then let the judiciary limit their authority. Also, if you try to ask the regulatory body for an opinion or "permission" in advance (as a prudent person might think to do), they might offer you one if you are lucky. But they will most likely qualify it as "non-binding." In other words, they give themselves wiggle room to change their mind at a later time to file an action against you. The long and short of it is, the scenario you describe is likely to at least cost John Smith a fortune in legal fees to litigate the matter with the California authorities. So it would be prudent not to give the advice in the first place. Even if he were to ultimately eventually prevail on the action.
You're going to an administrative hearing overseen by an "Impartial Hearing Officer" (IHO). Your goal should be to present your case in as clear, concise, and compelling a manner as possible. If there are guidelines for the hearing then abide by those. Ideally, the IHO will be a real lawyer or judge, in which case they will likely be concerned with giving everyone a chance to advance their position and then efficiently achieving a resolution of the issue that appears most impartial and is least upsetting to everyone involved. Often, however, you will find the IHO is a bureaucrat who enjoys making up and enforcing procedural rules. In which case all you can do is ask, "What are the rules?" and do your best to follow them (or just start working on your appeal now). For example, if the IHO wants to make the hearing "court-like," then you could read your state's Code of Civil Procedure. But if you bring a copy and when the IHO says X point out the CCP says Y, then all you will have accomplished is to irritate the IHO: He'll either grudgingly allow Y, or declare that in his hearing it's X. That will not help you achieve your goal. Re-reading your question: It sounds like you're trying to make up rules for yourself. Remember that you are not a lawyer, and the hearing is not a court of law. If you assert evidence it should be accepted based on what a "reasonable person" would believe. You don't have to establish a forensic chain of custody. So tell your story, and if there's an email that documents it more compellingly &ndash; e.g., because you're recounting events from two years ago &ndash; then note that you're reading what you wrote two years ago as opposed to stating what you remember now, because that bolsters the credibility of your testimony. If there's evidence in an Email from B, and A knows something about those matters, you should be allowed to ask A about the substance informed by the Email, even if A can't address the writing or sending of that particular message. (But remember: Never ask a hostile party a question if you don't already know what their answer should be!) If you really want to prepare, find someone to play devil's advocate, and present your case to them. That's a good way to find and correct things that hurt or distract from your case.
&quot;become yours&quot; - Which court are you in? The court of the schoolyard? If you're in real court, then You would need to sue, to quiet title When a bona-fide dispute as to ownership exists, a case can be brought before a judge to resolve ownership definitively. The axiom of a quiet title action is that you must notify all parties who could possibly have an interest. Really, notification is 7/8 of it, because by the time you arrive at a &quot;quiet title&quot; action, most likely they either lost interest or are gone. And the crux of &quot;Notify&quot; is that your efforts to notify the party are to the standards of the court. You are a hostile party, noting your interests are in conflict with theirs. (we must fairly assume they want their iPad back; you want to take the iPad). Thus, it is obvious you will prefer to fail in your efforts at contact, and you will do a bad job of it, possibly on purpose. Since parties in a lawsuit are responsible to serve all documents on each other, courts have very high standards for that. And these standards are tested and gamed all the time. I even had a clever plaintiff do it to me! (we were expecting both the appeal and the dis-service). The crux of document service is you hire a licensed, third-party independent process server. A process server is naturally good at skip-tracing (think &quot;Dog: the Process Server&quot;) and is accustomed to finding people who are actively hiding. (because some people think they can avoid consequences by evading service. That's a loser's game generally.) So, when you show up in court and they aren't there, the judge will ask &quot;did you serve them?&quot; And then you say &quot;yes&quot;, name the company, and if needed call the process server to the stand, and the server reads out of their notebook all the things they did to search for the counterparty.
The Sixth Amendment is very specific: &quot;[T]he accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy[...] trial.&quot; There is no such constitutional right given to the prosecution, and such a right would not serve the public interest. Defendants very often waive their right to a speedy trial in order to have more time to prepare a defense. Conversely, however, the defendant does not have the right to draw out the proceedings indefinitely. When the right to a speedy trial is waived, it falls to the court (that is, the judge) to schedule the proceedings at its discretion. It may choose to take into account the wishes of the prosecution or the defense or both, but is not required to do so.
It isn't explicitly prohibited so long as the amount claimed is in the aggregate less than $20,000. But, it would probably be better to file separately. First, very simple single party, single transaction cases are what small claims court is designed to do, and going against the flow often creates unforeseen confusion for the judge in the Justice Court who isn't a sophisticated civil litigation expert. The Justices of the Peace who preside over Justice Courts that handle small claims cases in Texas often aren't and don't have to be lawyers or even high school graduates. Second, if you sue as a group, and one of your group is the lead person handling the case (and that person isn't a lawyer), the lead person is at grave risk of being found to be practicing law without a license by taking actions in a lawsuit on behalf of your fellow plaintiffs.