Legal Studies Notes

Civil vs. Criminal Litigation

Week 1, May 5, 2025

Week 1.1 Review

Using the court system for conflicts.

Property disputes.

Motor vehicle accidents.

Job loss.

Plaintiffs and Defendants

Plaintiffs and defendants are key roles in litigation.

Familiarity with these terms will grow throughout the course.

Class Feedback

Checking on semester progress, no major problems reported.

Warm-up Reading

Short articles were handed out for a warm-up reading activity.

Articles used to introduce realistic situations from the news.

Articles are from 05/09/2023 and 01/31/2023.

Fyre Festival Analogy

The Disney market event is compared to the Fyre Festival.

Side Hustles and Small Businesses

Relate to corporate law and business organizations (covered in another course).

Focus on vendors and the Elevated Society Market organization.

Elevated Society Market

Job is to coordinate and book events.

They book convention centers or malls and sell spaces to vendors.

Realistic Scenario:Market books convention center and promotes on social media.

Vendors pay Elevated Society Market for space.

Vendors sell goods to attendees.

Event is poorly managed, drawing parallels to the Fyre Festival.

Vendor Perspective

Normal people seek opportunities to sell goods and earn extra money.

Vendors pay for a table at the event.

The second event is canceled at the last minute.

Civil Litigation and Injury

Civil litigation requires an injury.

The principle of "no harm, no foul" is introduced.

A near miss without actual injury does not give rise to legal action.

Examples:Not stealing someone's phone vs. actually stealing and damaging it.

A car accident where a careless driver causes damage vs. a near miss.

Types of Injuries

Injuries to the person or property are grounds for court action.

Personal injuries are physical harm to the body/health.

Psychological injuries have a high threshold for court action.

Example: A prank that leads to disappointment is not usually sufficient for a psychological injury claim.

Case Example: Historical English case where a prank involving the false report of a husband's death led to psychological harm warranting compensation.

Exclusion from a party is not a psychological injury for which one can go to court.

Financial Injuries

Financial injuries are a common reason to go to court.

For this course, the focus is on losses of 35,000 or greater.

It is not worthwhile to sue someone for two dollars that they owe you.

Rationale: Cost-benefit analysis to determine if legal action is financially worthwhile.

Other Types of Injuries

Real estate.

Physical property.

Valuable things.

Invisible things such as the right to a song.

Example: Emerging artists whose songs go viral on TikTok need to protect their intellectual property.

Jules trademarking "very demure, very mindful".

Two Sides to Every Story

The concept of defendant is introduced.

Greater than or equal to 75,000, go to the Superior Court of Justice. Less than 35,000, go to small claims court.

Case Analysis: Elevated Society Market

In this incident Elevated Society Market appears to be in the wrong.

Vendors versus Elevated Society Market.

Vendors pay money upfront to have a place in the market to sell their goods.

Vendors trusted Elevated Society Market to bring customers.

Vendors were unhappy with the organization because market didn't proceed as normal and they didn't get what they paid for.

The organization got paid upfront.

Event cancellation with no refund offered, only a credit for future participation.

Contracts, Injuries, and Legal Procedures

Not professional to say sorry that you're dumb and didn't read the contract.

The assumption that signed contracts would stand up in court is not necessarily true.

Future course content will look at scenarios where vendors suffered an injury.

Vendors suffered a lost opportunity to make money.

Hiring a lawyer to gather details of the story and do the paperwork for court.

If the plaintiff is going to sue, it is only fair for the plaintiff to tell the defendant that they're suing them.

Service on the Defendant

After the lawyer prepares the paperwork, there will be service on the defendant.

Special word we will talk about later in the course in great detail.

Service on the defendant informs them about the story of what happened.

The defendant gets a chance to tell their story to the court.

Pre-Trial Process

All this is before we see a judge and test these stories.

The starting point are the stories.

If something bad happens and someone suffers an economic injury, the promise of having the opportunity to sell was broken to them.

They hire a lawyer, the lawyer tells their story in paperwork and gives it to the other story and paperwork back.

Later, we will test the facts in discovery.

Trial is when in the court talking of the judge.

Starting with general overview today.

Vendors vs. Elevated Society Market

Honest vs. Scandal.

What is to stop us from telling people to to pay me $25 and give them contract that there's no refunds and then be like, oops something happens I had an emergency, but no refund for you.

Adversarial Situations

The plaintiff and defendant are at odds.

Contrast to collaborative.

Adversarial have winners and losers.

We're not being warm and fuzzy feelings and trying to get things where we both agree.

Persuasion

Person that they have to convince is the judge.

The judge is the ultimate decision maker.

Show that everything is in order and have the judge make a convincing decision.

Logos, Pathos & Ethos

Not something that is on test, but it's important that you know.

Logos is logic.

Ethos is the character of the person.

Pathos is how appeal to people's emotions.

Reported Legal Decision

Compile ordinary words that have specific legal significance.

Legal English and words that have a new or additional meaning in legal English.

In general, service means customer service.

Here is service where we're talking about officially giving paperwork from one person to another, we'll talk about more detail in the future.

Legal Systems

Civil law countries include France, Germany, and Brazil.

All laws are written down and judges analyze the current case and look at the laws to determine the outcome.

Common Law.

Countries include Canada, UK, Australia, and India.

We look at the history of legal decisions and passed legal decisions inform how we decide current cases as they come up to judges in court.

Reporting Cases

Legal reporters are printed books that collect cases from the courts year by year or partway through the year.

Nowadays we still use the sets of books from time to time.

Criminal and Civil Cases

Criminal cases we usually say the versus.

Civil cases we say the and.

For testing, no questions about this extra information.

Case Information Overview

2018 is a year of case.

ONSC for Ontario Superior Court of Justice.

neutral citation: 3 6 8 4.

Court file number: CB for civil and 16 for the year 2016 with a unique number.

Something bad happened to Eric. He's the plaintiff. Jenny accused Jennifer.

Lawyer wouldve started things off in 2016, but did not have the decision until sometime during 2018.

ONT Superior COurt of Justice. You know that's the name of court.

Marhsall was the lawyer for Eric not appearing for Jennifer's.

Justice dl Corbett.

Injury

Type of harm somebody experiences.

Property: money, physical land, home, condo.

Person: body or their health .Maybe someone works their body they're a professional hockey player and they're in a severe car accident and they're unable to do things.

Motivates to hire a the lawyer, is there the reason.

Remedies

We are getting a remedy.

If there is no harm there is no foul.

There are some things that are not right to go to court for.

It is not for someone to sue people for birthday invitations.

However, borrowing money and not paying it back is for the attorney.

REmedy is the large term for the compensation.

Remedy is bigger than damage.

Facts

Term for stories that the plaintiff the defendant.

Facts and cluster of facts and the facts and the lawyers are made up.

Anyone can make up anything, the lawyer is used or something similar.

Someone is never there during the accident, facts are for the parties.

When there is paperwork the judge will decide.

Evidence

How the system counts the stories.

Some instances that say the privacy doesn't matter compared to the actual facts.

Contract law is a very important topic overall in this entire semester.

Civil Court System

Keyword will always have the legally recognized reason to go to court because there has been something of action.

There has been something that has been done that is not considered the norm.

Say for example someone driving through the redlight is considered something wrong.

The lawyer knows the best overall what happened legally is more important that anything else.

Say someone borrows PlayStation that is kind of important but may not require them to be taken to court due to the cost to take the incident there.

Actions, Suits & More

If ever to use their money can sue to be successful depends on the legitimacy and more actions overall within these court decisions.

We give it on time unless they have a reason but there is reason if there is action and reason

We're not as just because we're bored from action.

Frivolous & Vexatious Litigation

Frivilous: does not mean a thing doesn't make a differne.

Sexatious: Very rude.

Those people that have a bad dynamic but they need to stop putting people down when they are supposed to be kind!

Remedy

What the person seeks and is the plaintiff.

In order to prevent further loss of profit from the company