Correlation between wealth and win rate I’m trying to find out if there’s a correlation between win rates in civil cases and the wealth of the parties involved. I’ve searched google scholar but the only thing I can find is a paper regarding who wins patent disputes. I suspect my lack of knowledge regarding legal terms is why I can’t find this research, hence why I’m asking for help here. Does anyone either know of any research papers regarding the impact of wealth when it comes to winning court cases. I’m mostly interested in civil cases, but any research papers on the subject would be appreciated :)
It is difficult to quantify in a useful way. Part of the issue is that calling the courts &quot;dispute resolution forums&quot; is misleading. Courts are &quot;rights enforcement forums.&quot; They are designed to provide remedies to people whose rights have been violated, not to neutrally resolve disputes between parties. And, most lawsuits are mostly one sided, not circumstances where both sides have legitimate grievances for which they seek redress. The vast majority of cases brought in courts, by raw number, are debt collection actions, evictions, and foreclosures. These cases are overwhelmingly brought by landlords against tenants and by lenders (mostly banks and big businesses that extend credit) against borrowers. I'll note those in bold. For example, in Colorado, in 2010, there were 116,346 civil cases filed in District Court in Colorado (the state trial court of general jurisdiction). Summary mortgage foreclosure actions accounted for 39,404 of those cases. State tax lien filings accounted for another 45,528 filings. These case make up 73% of the district court civil docket. There were 30,236 cases of other types on the District Court civil docket in the state. About 5,809 are claims that fit in the heartland of tort law: cases involving personal injuries including worker's compensation cases that end up in court) and wrongful deaths, breach of warranty, public nuisance, sexual harassment cases, fraud cases and malpractice cases (of all kinds) as well as motions to approve transfers of structured settlements. About 3,527 involve judicial efforts to establish title to or possession of specific pieces of property often in connection with the collection of a debt. A big portion of the remainder of the cases, 13,165 involve contractual disputes or rights in real estate or other property (a fair share of which are basically debt collection cases such as mechanic's lien foreclosures and large dollar non-payment of contractual debts that aren't seriously disputed). There were 722 appeals from municipal or county courts and 72 cases to confirm arbitration awards. There were 5 public utility cases, 236 cases reviewing acts by local governments and by government officials, and 31 special district cases, 470 declaratory judgment cases, 583 injunctive relief cases, 1,484 cases classified simply as &quot;other&quot;, 29 restraining order cases, and 334 contempt of court cases. These courts also handle divorces, child custody cases, paternity cases, probate cases, felony cases, and post-trial collateral attacks on criminal convictions. County courts in Colorado (at the time state courts with a $15,000 jurisdictional limit) had 148,425 debt collection money claims, 42,689 eviction cases, 531 cases to repossess personal property, 13,257 restraining order cases, 1,496 name change petitions, 27 purely administrative registrations of foreign judgments, and 529 cases classified as &quot;other.&quot; These courts also handle misdemeanors and traffic violation cases. About 93% of civil cases in county courts in Colorado are debt collection and eviction cases. Overwhelmingly, the landlords and money lenders win these laws and are more wealthy than the tenants and borrowers who overwhelmingly lose these lawsuits. A very larger share of the time these cases are lost by default. In very large share of the cases in which there is a default, it is because there is no viable defense: the promissory note or credit card was not paid as agreed, usually because the debtor was unable to pay it. In eviction cases, usually, the rent was not paid on time, often for the same reason. When there is not a default, there is usually a settlement or payment plan. We focus on the very rare cases that go to trial, but those are edge cases. There are good studies that show that defendants in debt collection and eviction lawsuits secure better results for themselves when they are represented by counsel, which they usually aren't, than when they are not. But defendants in debt collection and eviction lawsuits who are represented by counsel still usually lose anyway, just on somewhat less harsh terms. So, to do any nuanced analysis of the role played by affluence and wealth in litigation, you need to start by having a fairly sophisticated sense of what is and is not a win, and this is far from obvious. In contrast, tort lawsuits for personal injury are usually brought by ordinary individuals from all walks of life who get injured due to bad luck against either other ordinary individuals backed by the resources of an insurance company to defend and settle their cases, or against property owners, or against businesses. There is typically not an affluence divide in these cases, or if there is, the injured person is less affluent, and the injured person usually secured money from the person who they claim caused the injury, either at trial, or far more often, in settlement reached in the shadow of what would have happened if they case went to trial. Lawyers rarely commence personal injury lawsuits were there isn't a good argument that their client should win. Personal injury tort cases make up a thin sliver of cases filed and judgments entered relative to debt collection and evictions lawsuits. These cases make up about 2-3% of the total court system docket (but account for about 75% of civil jury trials). There is litigation other than debt collection, eviction and personal injury litigation. But in some of those kinds of cases, like probates and divorces and bankruptcies, where determining who is the winner and who is not is even more challenging. Indeed, in many such cases that are actively litigated, everyone ends up losing and no one ends up winning. In the law and economics literature, the classic study (Leeson 2011) looked at who won disputed land title disputed in medieval England in the days of trial by combat. It turns out that back then, the wealthier party, who could afford to hire better champions in a trial by combat, usually won. The question asked feels like it is trying to build on that model and determine if that kind of law and economics finding can be applied to modern day litigation with the controlling factor being who hires the best lawyers to go to trial for them, rather than who hires the best champion in trials by combat. Many cynical people think that this is how the legal system works now. But overwhelmingly, at the threshold of who gets any relief relative to the status quo from a court in litigation, the answer is almost always the person who brings the lawsuit, 95%+ of the time, either in a settlement, or at trial, and whether the person bringing the lawsuit is usually more affluent or less affluent than the defendant is dominantly a function of what basis for the lawsuit, while whether the parties have lawyers, and if so, how good they are, are only second or third order considerations. None of this is to say that hiring good lawyers, who, on average, are more expensive than mediocre lawyers, doesn't improve one's outcomes at the margins, or that affluent people are more able and willing, on average, to hire good lawyers than less affluent people. But, to see the difference, you need to think about relative degrees of winning or losing, and you need to recognize that the nature of the lawsuit matters. Along the same lines, studies comparing people who have private criminal defense counsel (because they can afford to do so) with people who have public defenders (who are by definition indigent defendants), usually show that the outcomes at the guilt-innocence phase are very similar between the two, although public defendants pay much less attention to their clients and provide much less &quot;customer service&quot;. The divide in those cases is not mostly on guilt-innocence outcomes, but in the ability of affluent defendants with expensive criminal defense lawyers to have more satisfying lawyer-client relationships and experiences, and to take better advantage of alternative sentencing options, rather than just getting thrown in jail or prison. To some extent, this is a long winded way of saying that the research you are looking for, in the plainest terms as stated in the question, doesn't really exist. This is, in part, because in many contexts at a shallow level, it is obvious, and in part, because, viewed more deeply, it is extremely subtle and requires very rich data to discern which makes it hard to gather and hard to compare.
Do criminals really &quot;have no recourse&quot; if their ill-gotten property is stolen by a third party? Basically yes. At sentencing, they can argue that restitution or fines should be limited because the money was in turn stolen from them and they don't have it. For example, I once had a client who was the sole heir to the estate of someone who had a substantial amount of illegal drugs in their possession at the time of the decedent's death (worth perhaps $100,000 USD), but the illegal drugs were stolen after the death of the decedent by someone known to my client. There was no legal way for my client to gain possession that stolen property or its worth.
When people talk about the "American rule," they usually mean a system where every party pays their own legal costs, and the winner is not compensated in any way for the costs of litigation. Using that as your basis, the American system itself is actually a "hybrid." The details change a bit from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. But in general: The loser in many American civil cases is required to pay the actual court costs. These are not as substantial as the attorney's fees, but they can easily run into hundreds or thousands of dollars. These costs are for things like filing fees, process servers, witness fees, court recorders and transcripts, and other costs that, generally speaking, are going to be the same no matter how much your lawyer charges. (Again, what specifically is included in costs depends on your jurisdiction). This imposes a non-trivial expense on the loser of a lawsuit, without allowing the other side to run up the costs to an outrageous figure by hiring huge teams of expensive lawyer, as is possible under the pure English system. While the "American rule" is the default rule in most or all American jurisdictions, there are generally rules that allow the Court to shift part or all of a prevailing party's legal fees to the other side under certain circumstances. For example: in many courts, if you bring a frivolous motion, or a motion designed primarily to inflate the costs of the suit, the court can require you to immediately pay any attorneys' fees expended in responding to that motion, even if you eventually win the lawsuit as a whole. This is a more specific and targeted penalty for misconduct than the English rule. Similarly, if the Court finds that the entire lawsuit you brought &ndash; or the defense you presented &ndash; was frivolous, or presented in bad faith, or under certain other circumstances, the Court can include attorney's fees in the final damage award, just as would have been done under the English rule. The result is a hybrid system. The benefit of this hybrid system, at least in theory, is that frivolous lawsuits are discouraged, but lawsuits that have some merit &ndash; even if they are ultimately unsuccessful &ndash; do not have to worry about the imposition of massive costs. However, the disincentive is not as much as it might be, since the standards courts use to judge a motion or lawsuit "frivolous" are generally quite stringent.
The official judgements do not reveal the funding for these lawyers; so where can I find this information? Nowhere. The commercial arrangements between lawyers and their clients are private and confidential like any other business transactions. You have no more right to know this then you do to know how your neighbour pays their mortgage. how could she have funded litigation in the EWHC and then EWCA before the UKSC? She may have rich parents or another benefactor who has in interest in her or the outcome of the case. She may have won the lottery. She may be the heiress of a dead rich uncle. By the way, "having" student loans does not mean you "need" student loans. Interest rates on student loans are cheap - if I need to pay $10,000 for a course and have $10,000 earning 5%, I would be nuts to use that if I could take out a loan at 3%.
If Poker was to be included, and restricted to only In-Game "Cash", would this be an issue regarding Online Gambling laws in a significant number of countries? It is hard to give a comprehensive answer because laws vary significantly among countries. I will focus on U.S. law, but other countries very likely adopt a more stringent definition of gambling (Muslim nations are at one extreme of the spectrum, since their religion prohibits games of chance). Under U.S. law (or at least in some of its jurisdictions) the scheme you outline would not meet the legal definition of gambling. The Black's Law Dictionary defines gamble as "[t]o play, or game [...] involv[ing],not only chance, but a hope of gaining something beyond the amount played". For a more formalized characterization of gambling, see Com. v. Irwin, 535 Pa. 524, 527 (1993): The three elements of gambling are (1) consideration; (2) a result determined by chance rather than skill; and (3) reward There, the court distinguishes between reward and entertainment in that in the latter "the player can never "win" anything other than a prize worth less than the amount he has played", Id. at 529. This is consistent with the case law from other jurisdictions. See Farina v. Kelly, 147 Conn. 444, 449 (1960): [A] lottery is characterized by three constituent elements, namely, a prize, a chance, and a price. [...] [A]s commonly understood, gambling involves not only chance but a hope of gaining something beyond the amount played Lastly, since In-Game "Cash" has zero interaction with Gold, and can not be purchased with real money it is evident that the purpose of adding Poker the game in the way you describe is pure entertainment, not for a player's expectation of reward as outlined in the aforementioned cases.
I am not a lawyer; I am not your lawyer. You do not cite a jurisdiction so this makes it very difficult to get a definitive answer. What follows is for Australia but the general principles are common law and would be applicable to other common law jurisdictions except where statues apply or case law has diverged. In the first instance, it seems that you were not party to any arrangement to pay for the electricity. So on the face of it you are not party to any contract requiring you to pay. Even if there was such an agreement: family, domestic, social and voluntary agreements (which this would be) are presumed not to be intended to legally bind the participants. Whether this presumption would be overturned would depend on the specific facts. On the face of it, there is no legal obligation to pay. Your options are: Do nothing; this puts the ball in their court, they can: Forget about it (it would then be over) Attempt to sue you with little prospect of success (which would cost them and you a lot more than $50 irrespective of who won) Do something illegal like beating you up (you really need to assess this risk) Tell everyone they know (in person and on social media) what a skiving prick you are (you could probably sue them for damages but that's not really going to happen, is it?) Pay them what they are asking Offer to pay them something less. Option 1 is likely to break any relationship you have with the person, Option 2 is likely to preserve it and Option 3 could go either way. Ultimately, like most legal questions, this is not about the law; it's about relationships ... broken ones mostly.
You are conflating the crime against the state of possession stolen goods with the common law tort against the owner for conversion. To your questions: How would this proceed? It seems like it would be very difficult to prove (short of getting public surveillance footage) that I even bought the item. If you read the second paragraph of the page you linked it says: In many jurisdictions, if an individual has accepted possession of goods or property and knew they were stolen, then the individual is typically charged ... If the individual did not know the goods were stolen, then the goods are returned to the owner and the individual is not prosecuted. Proof of the crime involves a "beyond reasonable doubt" standard of evidence of both the fact that you have the goods and that you knew they were stolen. If you become aware that they were stolen (e.g. the police tell you) and try to keep them then you have just committed the crime. Proof of the tort requires a "balance of probabilities" standard of evidence that you have the goods and that they belong to someone else; your knowledge that they were stolen is immaterial. In the first instance, the police would probably knock on your door, tell you why they were there and ask if the version of the story they have from the thief is essentially true. What happens next depends on your response: "Yes, I knew it was stolen; you better arrest me and I will plead guilty." This will play out as you expect. "Yes, I didn't know it was stolen, I will go and get it for you." You return the goods, give a statement and may have to act as a witness in the prosecution of the thief. You are down $1,000 but are now older and wiser. "No, I have no idea what you are talking about." Well, you have now committed the crime of hindering a police investigation and have also committed the crime of possessing stolen goods - you can no longer claim that you didn't know the goods were stolen; the police have told you they are. What happens next depends on if the police believe you or the thief. Surely they couldn't/wouldn't get a warrant to search my house? Want to bet? They certainly have enough to get a search warrant if they want one (probably). Whether they seek one probably depends on the value of the goods, how busy they are and how much you pissed them off. Could I be prosecuted if I didn't know it was stolen? Not if you return it as soon as practicable after being made aware that they were. The scam This seems like a lot of work for a very small return - spend your time worrying about things that are more likely to happen. Good Title All of this is tied up with the concept of good title. Basically, you cannot gain good title to property from someone who does not have good title themselves; if you buy goods from a thief you do not own them. For example, if A has good title to the goods, B steals them and sells them to C who sells them to D then A still owns them and can demand their return from D, D could demand the return of their money from C and C could do likewise with B but as far as A is concerned it doesn't matter that C &amp; B have lost money; that is simply too bad for them.
The criminal case will only punish the perpetrator, it will not give any compensation to the victims. So if you are the victim of a crime, and the perpetrator is capable of paying compensation, you would go for a civil case to get compensation. There's also the fact that in a civil case, there is less evidence required, so the perpetrator may win the criminal case (not found "guilty beyond reasonable doubt"), but lose the civil case. In many cases, the perpetrator is not wealthy enough to make a civil case worthwhile. If some lowlife stabs you in the street, you might very well win a civil case, but would end up getting nothing because the person has no money. So taking them to court would only cost you money.