Incorrectly Filing a Civil Case What happens if a civil case is incorrectly filed? Is there recourse to request that the case be dropped and make the petitioner refile the case? For example, in Indiana, a petition for a protective order must be accompanied with a statement by an affidavit, but it seems that judges often schedule a hearing for these petitions without such a statement. Can the respondent do anything if such a statement is not attached? If there is an affidavit, then isn't it the right that they should know their statement before the hearing? The second example is about if there is obviously contradictory information in the filed case. To use a petition for a protective order example again, suppose that the petitioner checks the box that violence has happened, but then claims latter that violence did not happen and that they are filing the petition for harassment. Does this not fail to properly notify the respondent to what is being claimed against them? (Also, isn't this an obvious case of perjury?)
If the case is filed improperly, the opposing party should file a motion to dismiss. If the opposing party merely disagrees with the allegations, they will likely have to litigate to address those differences. The inconsistency is not an obvious case of perjury, because it could just as easily be a clerical error.
The validity of the NDA is not an easy question, but a related one is more clear. A lawyer in the U.S. in most states is not permitted to threaten criminal or administrative action (e.g. reporting someone to immigration or tax officials), to gain advantage in a civil case. You can unilaterally bring criminal charges or take administrative action, but it is deemed to be unethical and against public policy to refrain from bringing criminal charges or taking administration action to gain civil advantages. An NDA of the type described arguably violated the same public policy and might be invalidated as a result. Put another way, there is a privilege to make certain reports to public officials without legal consequences and such an NDA might violate that privilege. Some of these privileges found in what are called "whistle blower" statutes specifically prohibit this kind of agreement as to some specific kinds of illegal conduct, but not others. There isn't a general rule. This said, it is not black and white. For example, a private NDA can't prevent someone from testifying under subpoena, but can prevent someone from voluntarily testifying in the absence of a legal compulsion to do so such as a subpoena. Suppose a woman is sexually assaulted at work, and is given an NDA to sign. Can the company legally require her not to disclose the conduct of an illegal activity? I can imagine this example coming out different ways in different jurisdictions. For example, some states have a legal duty (rarely enforced) that requires people to report felonies, and an NDA in this case would contradict that affirmative legal duty, while others do not. Another source of gray in the analysis is that there is a difference between not reporting a sexual assault that actually happened, and, as part of a larger settlement, executing an affidavit stating under penalty of perjury and under oath that a sexual assault didn't happen. The first is potentially an NDA that is void as a matter of public policy. The other, in principle, is a settlement that the person signing the affidavit can only enter into if it is true. There is nothing, in general, wrong, about requiring someone to confirm that certain representations are true as part of a business transaction or contract and allowing the contract to go forwards only if certain facts are true. The gray gets deeper, because whether a sexual assault happened or not is not always a subjectively black and white clear issue of pure fact. (It is subjective because an affidavit or affirmation is made to the best of the declarant or affiants' knowledge and belief, not as a matter of objective fact.) For example, someone may not have perfect memory of what happened, or there could be doubt over the question of whether the perpetrators acted recklessly (the Model Penal Code intent requirement for sexual assault) or merely with criminal negligence (which would not be sexual assault under the Model Penal Code). A statement made under oath about whether a sexual assault happened to the best of your knowledge, thus, might be a mixture of factual issues (A penetrated B at a certain date and time) and legal or not perfectly factually known ones (A acted with X intent regarding consent during that act). So, in a case where there was some room to argue either way about how to characterize what happened and about what actually did happen, there might be some room for a settling party to make a non-perjured statement consistent with the settlement and then to agree not to a true NDA, but instead to not make statements which, if the affidavit is true, would be false. In a plea bargain in a criminal case, one can plead "no contest" without agreeing that the crime factually happened, but that isn't really possibly in the context of an affidavit about what really happened, with an NDA limited to not disclosing the incident since it was already agreed as a matter of sworn fact that there is nothing to disclose that rises the level of a crime.
This is called a qui tam action. It's a concept that's been around a long time in the English legal system (predating the US), to encourage people to help the government enforce its laws. The more contemporary system is to give private parties the right to sue on their own behalf for some wrong (known as a "private attorney general" system), which is how things like civil rights claims tend to work; the difference with qui tam is that the government is the plaintiff (source) It's possible when the law says that a claim under some section may be filed by a private person on behalf of the government; at the time the article was written, the false marking statute (35 USC 292) stated that "Any person may sue for the penalty, in which event one-half shall go to the person suing and the other to the use of the United States." In a qui tam action, the government is the plaintiff; it's just that instead of a public attorney handling the case, it's handled by a private party. There were three active qui tam statutes in US federal law as of 2009 (source: CRS): the False Claims Act (31 USC 3730), the patent marking claim, and an Indian protection statute (25 USC 201). The patent marking qui tam provision has been repealed, leaving just the two. For the Indian protection statute, I can't find any reference to any special procedure; for the False Claims Act, there is a special procedure included in the law. In the False Claims Act, when an action is submitted, the government is notified and the complaint kept sealed for 60 days while the US government decides what to do. If the government wants to take over the case itself, it can do that; if it wants the private party to run the case, it can do that too; if it wants to dismiss or settle the case it can do that as well. It can also ask for the time to be extended, or for discovery to be delayed to gather evidence or prosecute a separate criminal or civil case. If the government lets the private party run the case, they can still intervene later if they have a good reason. After the case finishes, the private party gets 15-25% of the judgment or settlement (if the government took over the case) or 25-30% (if the private party ran the case), plus attorney fees. If the facts the case was brought under were publicly known when it was filed, the amount shrinks to 0-10% if the person supplied information to the government that wasn't publicly known when it was supplied, and the case is dismissed if the person just learned about it from public sources. For the false marking statute, a district court actually found it unconstitutional in part because of the lack of the extensive procedure found in the False Claims Act. There, the procedure was just to file the case like normal; the clerk had to tell the Patent Office that a claim had been filed within a month, but one issue was that a settlement could have happened in that time and bound the government. It's possible higher courts would have ruled had that section not been repealed later that year. As for other countries, the idea came to the US from England, but the Common Informers Act 1951 eliminated it there. However, private prosecutions (which do exist in England) are similar in that the case is on behalf of the Crown, but handled by a private party; they're different in that the private party doesn't get any part of the judgment. While it's hard to prove a negative, I can't find any evidence of qui tam provisions outside the US.
How can a person with a similar experience with the defendant, help the plaintiff in a lawsuit? You may bring Joe as witness or present some sworn testimony from him. That could be in the form of affidavit, deposition transcript, or by testifying in court. In what way can I use Joe's story? Joe's testimony will be relevant to the extent that it proves the defendant's pattern of conduct or system for doing a thing. Many (if not all) jurisdictions in the U.S. had a provision similar to Michigan Rule of Evidence 404(b)(1): Evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts [...] may, however, be admissible for other purposes, such as proof of motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, scheme, plan, or system in doing an act [...] when the same is material, whether [they] are contemporaneous, or prior or subsequent to the conduct at issue in the case. Thus, Joe's testimony would not prove your entire claim, but it can discredit important aspects of defendant's foreseeable denials in your matter. In some way the suggestion in the other answer makes sense, but I would discourage you from bringing suit together with Joe. That is because, despite all similarities, your claim are Joe's claim are different instances: Each cause of action stemmed from a separate contract; each contract/cause involves a different plaintiff; the statute of limitations of each wrong started running at different times; and your history with the defendant might differ from Joe's history with him on relevant aspects in a way that could prejudice you. Furthermore, if the defendant requests that the suits be separated, you and Joe would have no persuasive arguments on why your matters should remain consolidated. Lastly, the mere fact that a complaint is filed by two or more plaintiffs will not prompt a judge to act with honesty or with competence.
united-states I am answering this in the case of a criminal jury trial (given the context of the previous question). It is my understanding that the judge must accept (almost?) all evidence admitted into court. So, this leaves me with three questions: What happens if an official shows evidence that the judge hadn't agreed to feature in the trial? . . . What happens if the evidence happens to be inadmissible? A trial in a criminal case takes place in a courtroom at a predetermined date and time, with the prosecutor physically sitting at one table in front of a judge and the defendant and the defendant's lawyer physically sitting at another table in front of the judge, and a jury physically sitting in a seating area to the side of the judge, and a witness (usually) physically sitting in a chair on the other side of the judge (in rare circumstances, for minor witnesses, testimony is provided by telephone with the phone put on speaker in the courtroom for all to hear), and a court reporter or tape recorder keeping track of what happens verbatim. In a trial, essentially all evidence comes in through witnesses sitting on a special the chair in front of the judge designated for witnesses (called the witness stand) at the request of either the prosecuting attorney, or the defense attorney. This is the only way the evidence is introduced (other than by stipulations of both side's lawyers). Prosecutors and defense attorneys don't testify or provide evidence themselves. The judge is usually not told what evidence will be offered at trial in advance, although sometimes a pre-trial hearing is held to consider a particularly important piece of evidence's admissibility prior to trial, in a hearing on what is called a &quot;motion in limine&quot; or a &quot;motion to suppress&quot;. If that happens, the judge's decision made in advance will be honored by the judge when anyone tries to introduce the evidence at trial. But those are the exception and not the rule. Usually, any witnesses can be asked any questions at trial and the judge does not consider the admissibility of the answer to the question until it is asked and objected to by the other side's lawyer at trial. A defendant can choose to be, but is not required to be, a witness in his or her own case. In a trial, when it is their turn, the prosecution and defense, respectively, ask witnesses to sit at the witness stand one by one and ask them questions, which the witness answers under oath, absent an evidence objection from the other side's attorney. While a witness is on the stand, exhibits such as documents or physical objects can also be introduced into evidence in connection with the authenticating testimony of the witness (except in cases where both sides stipulate to the admission of the documents or other non-testimonial evidence). As the lawyers try to introduce evidence by asking a question to a witness on the stand, or by asking the judge for permission to introduce non-testimonial evidence, the other side's attorney can say, &quot;I object&quot;. If that happens, the witness on the stand is not allowed to answer the question and the non-testimonial evidence (e.g. documents, or a knife allegedly used in a crime) is not made available to the jury until the judge rules on whether it is admissible or not in accordance with the rules of evidence. Usually, the judge rules on the evidence objection immediately in the moment, although in rare cases, the judge will let the jury have a break for a few minutes while hearing arguments from the lawyers for both sides on about the relevant evidence rules and/or researching the legal issue, before ruling on the evidence issue. Once the judge rules on the evidence issue, the trial continues immediately. If the judge &quot;sustains&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the question doesn't get asked and/or the jury doesn't get to see the non-testimonial evidence. The lawyer whose question or offer to introduce evidence was successfully objected to moves on to their next question (if any) for the witness instead. If the judge &quot;overrules&quot; the objection to the evidence, then the witness answer the question and/or the jury gets to see the non-testimonial evidence which is &quot;received&quot; into evidence by the judge. This process continues continuously, for as many business days as it takes, until all witness testimony and all non-testimonial evidence has been presented to the court and both sides have told the court that they have presented all of their evidence. Then each side makes closing arguments to the jury, the judge reads the jury instructions of law on how to resolve the case, and the jury is sent to closed room to discuss the case and decide whether to say &quot;guilty&quot; or &quot;not guilty&quot; with respect to each charge brought by the prosecution in the trial. This decision is called a &quot;verdict&quot; and when the jury has made up its mind on all charges present to it, the jury lets the judge know that it has made up its mind, and the judge calls everyone back to the courtroom, and the jury tells the judge what they decided in open court. If the verdict is &quot;not guilty&quot; on all criminal charges in the case, then the case is over, with no post-trial motions and no appeals. If the verdict is &quot;guilty&quot; the defendant is convicted, subject to post-trial motions to declare a mistrial and appeals by the convicted defendant. If the convicted defendant appeals the case, and the judge abused his discretion in overruling an objection to the evidence that is made by the lawyer for the defendant (or the defendant personally if the defendant is not represented by a lawyer), because no reasonable judge could have found that the evidence was admissible under the circumstances, then the appellate court rules that the judge has made an &quot;error&quot;. The appellate court will not find that the judge's ruling is an &quot;error&quot; if the judge made the correct decision for the wrong reason. If it is reasonably possible that &quot;error&quot; possibly in combination with other errors made by the trial court judge could have caused a convicted criminal defendant to have been acquitted by the jury if the errors weren't made by the judge, then the defendant gets a new trial. The new trial usually before the same judge with a new jury. But the new trial is before a different judge and a new jury if the judge is no longer a judge on the court for any reason, or if the judge has been so defiant of the appellate court (typically ignoring its instructions in a retrial after a first appeal) that the appellate court decides it must remove the judge from the case. A criminal defendant is only acquitted by an appellate court if the appellate court finds that it would be impossible under any circumstances for the defendant to be convicted in a new trial, possibly with different evidence presented by the prosecution. What happens if a private citizen does the above? This doesn't make sense. Private citizens don't rule on the admissibility of evidence in a criminal trial, and can't introduce evidence in a criminal trial except at the request of a prosecuting attorney or defendant's attorney by being called as a witness and asking the questions that the lawyers (and sometimes the judge as well) asks the witness. Witnesses are not allowed to volunteer testimony or provide documents to a jury unless asked to do so by a lawyer in the case. What happens if someone provides evidence in court without the knowledge of the judge? As the process described above should make clear, this is basically impossible absent some extremely irregular event on the same level of irregularity as someone bribing a jury or threatening a jury with harm if he votes the wrong way.
Normally, the prosecution case will not rely upon the testimony of the defendant. Instead, the prosecution will call all of its witnesses until its evidentiary case is complete. Then, the defense case opens and it may call witnesses. The defense is not obligated to call all of the witnesses that it stated that it anticipated that it would call prior to trial and the jury doesn't know which witnesses the parties said that they anticipated that they were going to call and didn't call. Until the defense case is closed, the defendant can call himself or herself as a witness if he or she wishes to do so, but is not obligated to do so. Once a defendant starts testifying (generally in his or her own case) he or she has generally waived the Fifth Amendment right not to testify. So, the prosecution may cross-examine the defendant in this situation. But since the prosecution's case is usually already closed at this point, the prosecution's cross-examination is limited to the scope of the defendant's testimony under questions from his or her own lawyer (there are some nuances of how this is done when the defendant is self-represented and has no lawyer). The prosecution cannot expand the scope of questioning of the defendant to new topic areas. I can imagine deviations from this pattern in odd circumstances, but they would be very rare.
Acquittals in criminal jury trials cannot be appealed (at least in a way that affects the outcome, Colorado and a few other states allow criminal appeals by the prosecution solely for the purposes of clarifying the law prospectively). Interlocutory appeals (i.e. appeals before the case is over) by the prosecution are allowed for pre-trial rulings (e.g. suppression of evidence rulings in a pre-trial hearing), in criminal cases, but not for evidentiary rulings made in the midst of a jury trial (which is when jeopardy attaches for the purposes of the double jeopardy rule, which is what prevents acquittals from being retried). An error in a ruling on an admission or rejection of evidence at trial may be appealed by a convicted defendant if the alleged misapplication of the evidence rule was an abuse of discretion by the judge, and was not &quot;harmless error&quot; (i.e. if as part of all errors made in the case there is a reasonable probability that it changed the outcome that the jury reached).
In Civil Cases Petitions, Complaints, And Suits Suits The term &quot;suit&quot; is uncommon and verges on colloquial. It is a shortened version of the term &quot;lawsuit&quot; a.k.a. civl action a.k.a. court case. The term &quot;lawsuit&quot; refers to the entire case that is initiated by a Petition or a Complaint, rather than just a single document. The term &quot;lawsuit&quot; excludes court cases that are criminal and brought in the name of &quot;The People.&quot; When one &quot;files a lawsuit&quot; or &quot;files suit&quot; one initiates a court case by filing a Complaint or a Petition with a court.* In some circumstances, a lawsuit is commenced by delivering the Petition or Complaint and other documents to another party to the case first, an action called &quot;service of process&quot; and then filing it with the court, while in most cases, filing the Petition or Complaint with the court comes first and service of process comes second. Petitions v. Complaints A Petition and a Complaint are each documents used to initiate a civil action (sometimes called a lawsuit or a court case) seeking some kind of relief from a court. For all practical purposes, the differences between Complaints and Petitions is purely stylistic and a matter of custom and history. Normally there is a filing fee for filing a Petition or Complaint. When a court case is commenced with a Complaint, the document that someone who is sued must file is called an &quot;Answer&quot;. When a court cases is commenced with a Petition, the document that someone who is a party to the case must file to dispute that the relief requested in the Petition be granted is called a &quot;Response&quot; or an &quot;Objection&quot;. When Is Complaint v. Petition Terminology Used Roughly speaking, the initial document is almost always called (in U.S. practice at least) a &quot;Complaint&quot; in contexts where the primary relief sought would have been for causes of action brought in courts of law in the English common law system before the merger of law courts and equity courts a.k.a. courts of chancery. See generally, this Law.SE answer. For example, the document initiating a lawsuit (a.k.a. civil action) for breach of contract, or for money damages in tort (e.g. a personal injury lawsuit), are almost always described as a &quot;Complaint.&quot; The term &quot;Petition&quot; is most often used to describe an initial document seeking relief from a court in particular kinds of cases associated with historical equity relief and often don't seek money damages or don't have a clear winner or loser. Petitions are used, for example, to initiate a probate case, a guardianship or conservatorship case, a bankruptcy case, a divorce case, a request to change your name, or a case seeking to incorporate a municipality or special district. It is also customary to call an initial document seeking relief from a court a &quot;Petition&quot; when the relief sought is a &quot;Writ&quot;. So, for example, one files a Petition for Writ of Certiorari, a Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, and a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus. A &quot;Writ&quot; is a court order directed to someone who is not a party to a lawsuit directing that person (usually, but not always, a government official) to do something. Notwithstanding this general rule, however, in cases seeking money damages, possession of real estate (i.e. evictions), and possession of specific items of personal property (a.k.a. &quot;replevin&quot; actions or &quot;claim and delivery&quot; actions), cases are generally initiated with a document entitled a &quot;Complaint&quot; even though some of the post-judgment relief awarded will consist of writs (e.g. a writ of garnishment or a writ of execution in a case seeking a money judgment, a writ of restitution in a case seeking possession of real property, and writs of attachment and writs of assistance in cases seeking possession of personal property). In some kinds of cases, such as lawsuits to quiet title to real property, or lawsuits alleging breaches of fiduciary duty, the initiating document is sometimes called a &quot;Complaint&quot; and sometimes called a &quot;Petition&quot; in an inconsistent manner. The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure calls the document used to initiate a civil action a &quot;Complaint&quot; and many state rules of civil procedure follow the lead of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. In those jurisdictions, the term &quot;Petition&quot; is often used to refer to court cases that aren't governed by the ordinary rules of civil procedure. But this distinction isn't followed strictly. Some kinds of Petitions and Motions that initiate civil actions are still governed in whole or in part by the ordinary Rules of Civil Procedure. Application v. Petition Also, sometimes the word &quot;Application&quot; is used in lieu of the word &quot;Petition&quot;, in part, because it is seen by reformers as a more &quot;plain English&quot; and less technical word than &quot;Petition&quot;. The term &quot;Application&quot; rather than &quot;Petition&quot; is also sometimes used, in part, to avoid confusion with the more general non-legal sense of the word &quot;Petition&quot; to mean an request made outside the legal system to a public official or other individual requesting that they do something, or a document signed by numerous people seeking to allow a candidate to run for office or allowing a citizen's initiative to be placed on the ballot in an election, for example. Motions The General Rule A &quot;Motion&quot; predominantly refers to an oral request or written request made to a court requesting that the court do something during the course of a civil action a.k.a. lawsuit a.k.a. court case after the case was initiated with a Complaint or a Petition. Motions don't necessarily have to be filed by parties to the case, even though motions are usually filed by parties to cases. For example, a non-party to a case could file a &quot;Motion to Intervene&quot; to be made a party to the case, or could file a &quot;Motion to Quash&quot; or a &quot;Motion for Protective Order&quot; to seek to limited the scope of, or invalidate, a subpoena served upon a non-party. Motion are filed, for example, seeking to add a party, to dismiss a case, to amend a document previously filed in the case, for an extension of time to do something, to exclude evidence at an upcoming trial or hearing, to convert a case from a jury trial case to a non-jury trial case, to change a trial date, or any manner of other things that require court action. Requests for post-judgment relief in an existing case and post-judgment litigation of custody and child support matters in divorce cases are also called Motions. A court filing that doesn't ask a court to do something is often called a &quot;notice&quot; or &quot;status report&quot; or &quot;return&quot; (a &quot;return&quot; is a report to the court that something that should have happened in a court supervised process actually happened). Other terms are used as well. Normally, there is not a filing fee for filing a Motion in an existing case. Motions That Start Court Cases But because the law is not entirely consistent in its terminology, the term &quot;Motion&quot; is in rare instances used to refer to a document used instead to initiate a new court case concerning a very narrow special proceeding in a court. For example, in Colorado, where I practice, some of the court cases that are initiated by a Motion include: A Motion to Compel or Stay an Arbitration proceeding. A Motion to Confirm, Vacate, or Modify an Arbitration Award. A Motion to Compel a legal entity to turn over its records to one of its owners. A Motion to authorize an otherwise public trustee foreclosure of deed of trust for real property to go forward. A Motion to have a money judgment entered in another state recognized in the state where the Motion is filed. The basic notion is that in the kind of court cases initiated by a Motion rather than a Petition or a Complaint, the intent is that the entire court case should involve a procedural process similar to the process of resolving a single isolated motion within a larger court case, as opposed to the full legal process involved in an entire court case initiated by a Complaint or a Petition. Another term used to initiate a court case, often a limited special proceeding without involving the procedural incidents of a full fledged civil lawsuit is an &quot;application.&quot; Normally there is a filing fee for filing a Motion that initiates a new court case. In Criminal Cases Criminal Cases Are Not Lawsuits The term &quot;suit&quot; or &quot;lawsuit&quot; is normally reserved for civil cases and is not used to refer to criminal cases brought in the name of &quot;The People&quot;. Often a criminal case brought in the name of &quot;The People&quot; is called a &quot;Prosecution&quot;. Motions The term &quot;Motion&quot; is used the same way in criminal cases as it is in civil cases. As in civil cases, the term Motions is used for post-verdict fillings requesting relief from a court in existing criminal cases, such as a Motion to Seal a record in an existing criminal case, or a Motion to set aside a verdict after it is entered. Also, as in civil cases, there are some criminal cases that can be initiated via a &quot;Motion&quot; which are generally narrow special proceedings intended to be adjudicated with the procedural trappings of a motion filed in another case rather than the procedural trappings associated with a full fledged criminal case. Sometimes these filings to initiate new special proceedings in criminal cases are called &quot;applications&quot; rather than &quot;motions&quot;. For example, a request to a court to issue a criminal search warrant would often be called a &quot;Motion for Issuance Of A Search Warrant&quot; or an &quot;Application For A Search Warrant.&quot; Petitions In criminal practice, the term &quot;Petition&quot; is normally reserved for an application for a Writ, such as a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari, or a Petition for a Writ of Mandamus. Complaints v. Indictments In Criminal Cases Criminal law practice uses the term &quot;Complaint&quot; differently than in civil practice, however. In criminal law practice, the key distinction is between a &quot;Complaint&quot; which is a document commencing a criminal prosecution against a criminal defendant filed by a prosecutor (or where the law authorizes it, by a non-lawyer such as a police officer or crime victim), and an &quot;Indictment&quot; which is a document commencing a criminal prosecution against a criminal defendant issued by a grand jury. A document initiating a criminal prosecution without using a grand jury is also sometimes called an &quot;information&quot; or a &quot;complaint and information&quot;. (N.B. the State of Colorado is misclassified in the map above and does not exclusively use grand jury indictments to commence felony cases. It should be blue and not gray in the map above.) Serious crimes prosecuted in federal courts, and in some (mostly Eastern U.S.) states have to be commenced with an indictment rather than a complaint. In most states (mostly in the Western U.S.), however, a prosecutor can initiate almost any kind of criminal case with a Complaint, and criminal cases initiated by grand jury indictments are the rare exception reserved mostly for organized crime cases, cases involving politicians or with political implications, and cases against law enforcement officers. Generally speaking, in criminal cases commenced by an indictment, there is no right to a preliminary hearing to determine if the criminal charges are supported by probably cause before a judge, while there is generally a right to a preliminary hearing for that purpose before a judge in most serious criminal cases commenced with a criminal complaint.