Legal Ease by Shane Givens
May 18, 2011

Why is my civil suit taking so long? PART I

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A civil lawsuit can take years to resolve, whether by settlement or actual trial. Looking at the several steps involved in a typical civil action explains why.

Usually the first document filed in a lawsuit is the complaint, which provides an outline of the plaintiff's case. The complaint identifies the parties involved, sets out the legal basis for the court's jurisdiction over the controversy, states the plaintiff's legal claims, and relates the facts giving rise to the claims.

After the complaint is filed, the defendant must be served a summons, an order from the court where the lawsuit will be heard. It also notifies the recipient that he or she has been sued and sets out the time limit within which the defendant must file an answer or seek to have the case dismissed. In many cases, it is difficult to serve a defendant, whether he or she is dodging the complaint or is just hard to find.
After a person is served they have a certain number of days, depending on the case, to answer. If a defendant has his or her own claim against the plaintiff, it should be raised in the answer. This counterclaim will be written in a manner similar to the complaint.

If there are two or more defendants involved in a lawsuit, they may cross-claim one another. Cross-claims arise when there are many parties to the lawsuit and two or more have their own dispute arising out of the transaction or occurrence. The person being sued in a cross-claim will file an answer similar to the one filed after the original complaint.

After the initial pleadings phase, many times pre-discovery motions are made by one or more parties. A motion to dismiss is sometimes filed in the very early stages of the litigation when the defendant believes that the complaint is legally deficient in some way. In deciding a motion to dismiss, the court must view the facts set forth in the complaint. A motion to dismiss is usually based on one or more of the following: 1) lack of jurisdiction, meaning that the court doesn't have the power to rule on the controversy; 2) lack of personal jurisdiction, which means the court does not have power to make decisions affecting the defendant; 3) improper venue, meaning the particular location of the court; or 4) insufficiency of process, meaning a case may be dismissed if there is a technical defect in the summons or it was not properly served .

Next week in Part II we will look at some other pre-trial motions and discuss the discovery phase, which usually is responsible for the largest portion of time in a civil lawsuit. 

This column is intended for general information purposes only. The answers to most legal problems rely on specific facts of a particular situation; therefore, it is very important to see a lawyer when these situations arise. 

Please e-mail questions for future columns to givenslaw@tds.net.