Question one: Procedural stages of a civil case
In the United States of America, the Constitution does not donate civil suits to the Federal Government. Under the doctrine of residual powers, it is the states that have the authority and mandate over civil cases. It is on that premise that civil procedure in the United States may be different from state to state. However, there has been a general approach applied by all the fifty states. In this section, the paper shall discuss the procedural stages in a civil suit.
A civil suit begins formally with the institution of the suit. Often, the suit can only be instituted once the parties have tried other options to solve the dispute. In fact, it is required that the party making the claim should have done a demand letter which expressly required for the settlement of the dispute outside the court process. The formal institution of suit brings the case to the purview of the court and, the jury and the judge become the final arbiters. It is instructive to appreciate that their deductions would be final with the exception of appeals or reviews. The process of institution of suits is characterized by the filing of pleadings. Pleadings take different formats depending on the dispute in case. The pleadings could be petitions, plaint, applications or originating summons depending on the nature of the dispute. All these arise from the claimants in the case otherwise known as the plaintiffs. This set of pleadings is responded to by the defendants in the form of defenses, response to petition, response to summons, among others depending on the nature of pleadings. It is also at this time that the parties to the case file their documents to the case. These are filled with the registrar in the courts and equally served on the opposing parties. Once the pleadings have been closed, any additional documentation may only be adduced with the leave of court.
After the pretrial conference, the suit heads to the full trial. In the full trial, parties argue their case in the court. The jury and the judge have to listen to the arguments in detail. The parties in contest are each allowed time to argue their case and in each session, either side is afforded an opportunity to cross examine the other. The process may take several months and is arguably the longest stage of a suit.
Lastly, the suit heads to the findings and judgment stage. The findings precede the judgment and are an expression of the position of the court in respect to the dispute. It is always the case that judgment follows the findings. To this extent, the court would confer decrees to the benefit of the party on whose favor the findings are.
Question two: Judicial remedies in a civil case
Civil cases, unlike criminal cases, hardly result into the sentencing of the faulting party. Often, the spirit in civil cases in awarding remedies is to get the parties back to their previous condition before the event in issue occurred. However, in some cases, the remedies may also look at correcting an injustice, prohibiting the occurrence of some injustice and or compensating one for the inconveniences occasioned, among others. In this section, the paper shall discuss some of the remedies available in civil cases.
The most common remedy is damages. In damages, the aggrieved party is paid an amount in relation to the amount of damage he has suffered. This may be special or general. The special damages are specific and the amount is often quantified in the beginning of the suit. However, general damages are discretional and the amount depends on the assessment of the court with due consideration of the jurisprudence in place. Generally, damages offer the best form of legal awards. In most civil cases, the disputes are often of a contractual nature and damages suffice for purposes of compensating the aggrieved party and returning the same party back to the pre-contractual time.
The court may issue an injunction that prohibits temporarily or permanently the performance of an act which in the court’s opinion would be prejudicial and or inequitable to the plaintiff. Injunctions are issued with due consideration of the urgency and circumstances facing the case. The injunction suffices to prevent the occurrence of an event in a particular way. A typical example can be seen in the stoppage of the firing of an employee if considered illegal. Court may award costs to the winning party. The party awarded cost does not bear the legal costs incurred in the litigation. It is the opposing party that bears all the costs including the legal costs of the party that won the case. In addition, the court may award other remedies such as reinstatement in cases of termination of jobs, compensation for losses, and specific performance in contracts, among others.
The court equally issues some orders which are generally of an administrative nature. No cut out delineation suffices in relation to orders of mandamus, prohibition and certiorari and whether the same are confined to the purview of administrative law. In that respect, suffice it to say that such orders are at the disposal of courts to issue in relation to the solution of some civil cases. These cases mainly fall under the ambit of employment law, administrative law and the like. The orders impose certain obligations on parties. For instance, mandamus compels a party to act in a particular way, certiorari quashes the decision made by a party and prohibition prohibits the performance of a certain order in a certain way. All these orders are complimentary to injunctions which are more available in civil cases as opposed to the former.
It is essential to mention the fact that legal remedies are awarded by the court but pursued by the attorneys of the decree holders. The process that follows is known as execution. In execution, the attorneys extract the decrees from the judgment and pursue their implementation at times even requiring the input and participation of court in cases such as attachment of property.
Question Three: Significance and relation of cases
Terry v Ohio
The case is significant for it gave the Supreme Court an opportunity to interpret the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches. The Supreme Court held that where the police officer involved, on a reasonable ground for suspicion in involvement or intention to participate in crime, performed an unwarranted search, the unwarranted search was legal and therefore the fruits of the same would be admissible. This decision has been observed as being of an exclusionary approach and in essence extends the powers of the police. It is imperative to appreciate that the case gave the police discretion as what is reasonable cannot be standard for all human beings. It is this paper’s contention that this ruling limited the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable searches.
Miranda v Arizona
Miranda case is significant in the sense that it promoted the rights of the arrested persons. The court ruled that the evidence gathered from the accused would only be admissible if the accused had been properly informed of his rights as an arrested person as granted by the Constitution. Miranda, therefore, laid good law for the admissibility of testimonies gathered from accused persons upon arrest. One essential right in the Miranda warnings is the right to legal representation. This right has become the cornerstone of the American jurisprudence in as far as accused person’s liberties are concerned.
Mapp v Ohio
The significance of the case is that through it the court extended the protection of the Fourth Amendment to state laws as well. This is because the Court ruled that evidence gathered in violation of the Fourth Amendment would not be applicable even if the case involved was at state level. This case, therefore, saw the extension of the federal law of interpretation to state laws. It in effect gave the Constitutional rights significance even at state level. It also laid the foundation for strengthening the exclusionary rule of admissibility of evidence.
Relationship of cases
The relationship of these cases can be seen from different spectra. One, all the cases involve matters of evidence gathering. Through the cases, the Supreme Court laid the rules in respect of the Fourth Amendment rights to privacy as compared to the need for law enforcement officers to be given an opportunity to gather evidence. Through the cases, the competing interests of the law enforcement system and the rights of persons are seen and it is illuminating just how the Courts arrived at their decisions. This is because while the last two appear to strengthen the privacy rights of persons, the first one appears to give some discretion to the law enforcement officers. Lastly, the cases occurred in the same decade just when the civil rights movement in America was at its peak. The decisions appear to suggest the consciousness of the judiciary to the plight of persons in as far as privacy was concerned. Through the cases one sees a judicially active Supreme Court keen to consolidate the privacy rights of persons. However, Miranda equally comes out as an attempt by the Court to strengthen the rights of the accused and the need for legal representation. Finally, all the cases were decided at the Supreme Court suggesting just how serious such matters were at that time.
