Session 12, civil court Flashcards
What is a civil case?
- when individual or business believes their rights have been infringed upon
- tried in Country court and High court
What are areas of civil law?
- contract
- tort
- family
What happens in County courts?
- try nearly all civil cases
- heard by circuit or district judges
- sometimes jury of 8. Only in deformation cases or tort of malicious prosecution
What is the main area of jurisdiction in country courts?
- all contract and tort, recovery of land, disputes over equitable matters with trust funds up to £350,000
What happens in High courts?
- power to hear any civil case
- 3 divisions:
- queens bench division
- chancery division
- family division
What happens in queen’s bench division?
- biggest division
- deals with contract and tort where claim is over £100,000 and smaller claim which include important law
- usually one judge
- has specialised courts:
What specialised courts does the queens bench have?
- commercial court: deals with insurance, banking and other commercial matters
- admiralty court: deals with shipping matters
- administrative court: supervises lawfulness of the conduct of national and local government, inferior courts and tribunals
What happens in the Chancery division?
- involves disputes of copyright, intellectual property, enforcement of mortgage
- cases heard by single judge
What happens in the Family division?
- hears family cases with dispute about which countries laws should apply
- hears cases that can be dealt with in family court
- heard by single judge
What is an alternative method than going to court?
Alternative dispute resolution
How do you start a court case?
- pre-action protocol: parties encouraged to give information to eachother to prevent many cases
- the court to use: court chosen based on money claimed
- issuing a claim
- defending a claim: when received defendant can accept and pay which ends case. If otherwise defendant must send letter of acknowledgement or defence to court. If not done 14 day claimant asks for court order
What are the three tracks?
- small claim track
- the fast track
- the multi-track
- decision on which track to use decided by district judge in Cty court or master judge in H court
What are small claims?
- heard in private
- district judge
- parties encouraged to represent themselves
- cost of lawyer cannot be claimed from other side
What are fast track claims?
- very strict timetable for pre-trial matters
- case heard within 30weeks
- circuit judge
- more formal procedure than small claims
What is a multi-track case?
- identifying early issues, encouraging parties to use alternative dispute resolution
- aimed at keeping costs low and making sure case heard quickly
Who recommended reforms within the civil justice system in 1999?
Lord Wolf
What have been improvements due to Wolfs reforms?
- more co-operation between parties lawyers
What are the problems with the civil justices system after these reforms?
- ADR not used enough
- cost of cases have rised
Who more recently suggested reforms?
Lord Briggs 2016
What reforms did Lord Briggs suggest?
- out of hours private mediation service
- online court should be set up for lower cost
1) stage 1: online process for identification of issue
2) stage 2: conciliation and case management carried out by case manager
3) stage 3: if case is not yet resolved then judge decided
How do appeal work for civil cases from County Court?
Appeals from County Court
- if case was heard by district judge appeal is to circuit judge in same County Court
- if case was heard by Circut judge it’s appealed to High Court Judge
How do appeals work for civil cases in High Courts?
- goes to court of appeal civil division
- rarely appeal to Supreme Court
What are the advantages of using the courts?
- judge is impartial and process is fair
- trial conducted by legal expert
- there is an appeal process
What are disadvantages of using the courts?
- expensive
- delay
- complicated process
