Burden of Proof: Civil Trial

[AltF4]

Welcome once again. I've been on a bit of a legal-issue binge lately, and this is a continuation of that. As always, the following refers only to US law, unless where otherwise noted. Oh, also, I AM NOT A LAWYER. So don't misconstrue anything here as "legal advice".


Quick clarification:

A good number of people are not aware of this distinction in US law. In the US, Civil cases and Criminal cases are completely separate and independent. Criminal cases have juries, and determine whether or not someone goes to jail. Civil cases just have a judge, and determine damages.

Think of the difference between Law and Order, and Judge Judy.

They are totally and completely separate. For example, OJ Simpson was found not guilty in a Criminal court. But was found guilty in a Civil court. (And had to pay a bunch of money, or whatever)

Criminal cases are not the subject of this topic. But rather only Civil court.



What is burden of proof?

For those of you who watch Law and Order, burden of proof is the principle that all people are innocent until proven guilty. That means that the prosecutors must prove that the suspect committed the act they are being accused of.

In Criminal cases this is the famous "Beyond a reasonable doubt" criteria. It is a pretty high standard! Beyond a reasonable doubt. So all the defense has to do is provide a "reasonable doubt" that the defendant is innocent.

In Civil cases, however, there is a different criteria. It is far lower, and is not so explicitly stated. Essentially, the plaintiff (the person doing to suing) needs only convince the judge that the defendant probably is guilty.


My Assertion:

The burden of proof for civil cases should be increased to that of criminal cases. "Beyond a reasonable doubt"


1) Frivolous Lawsuits: We all know how "litigation-happy" the USA has become. I think this is in large part to the lax standard in which someone can sue somebody else. Combined with the appeals courts, a person can have many attempts at convincing a judge, too! And they only need one to agree with them.

Increasing the burden of proof for plaintiffs will drastically reduce (if not eliminate) frivolous lawsuits. It will eliminate the "he said, she said" lawsuits, and require that people bring proof in order to sue someone.

The US is in serious trouble when the best and brightest students go to study Law instead of Science.


2) Ignorant Judges / Technological Issues: A single person (a judge) is the determiner of guilt in civil court. When this person is ill-informed on a particular issue, it is easy to trick them into thinking the defendant is "likely guilty".

The average age of a US judge is very high (though I couldn't find a source to cite for this). The typical judge is very unlikely to understand technologies like encryption, networking, peer-to-peer file sharing, bit torrent, or how computers work at all, actually.

Someone who doesn't understand these issues technically can easily be fooled into believing the lesser burden of current civil trial.


3) Bad evidence, or non-evidence: It is easy for a prosecutor to give a judge "evidence" in the form of screenshots that don't actually prove anything. Any screenshot can be easily photoshopped to display literally anything you want.

This kind of "evidence" is common to convict people in civil trial. But this same "evidence" would be laughed at in criminal cases!


*more may come when I have the time*


As always, thanks for reading, and I'd love to hear opposing opinions!
-Alt

 

[aeghrur]

Hm, that's very interesting. I don't understand why you say the brightest minds going to law is a bad thing. Some people can be more suited to law, and American Law isn't as... influential as before. It is no longer being exported or setting a precedent around the world, so if our bright minds can make it as great as it was before, I don't see a problem with it.

Also, I'm not sure about the Burden of Proof for the civil cases because are there really enough evidence in civil trials to say, "He did this much damage to my ______________?" I mean, you have to prove he did the damage and that the damage was worth that much. That's 2 proofs... =/ Iunno. Too bad I have no experiences with civil cases.

 

[AltF4]

Also, I'm not sure about the Burden of Proof for the civil cases because are there really enough evidence in civil trials to say, "He did this much damage to my ______________?" I mean, you have to prove he did the damage and that the damage was worth that much. That's 2 proofs... =/ Iunno. Too bad I have no experiences with civil cases.

Well, if you don't have proof, then maybe you shouldn't be suing! That's the whole point of the thread. To cut down on those kinds of baseless lawsuits. I don't see why forcing someone to prove their allegations is such a bad thing.

 

[Zero Beat]

Hmmm, interesting read ALT.

Is this an actual DEBATE PICK A SIDE topic or just a topic to kick back and have an intellectual discussion?

Anyway, I think that it's not your decision to make what the burden of proof is for proving to anyone but yourself. Same goes for the judge. You can decide the burden of proof if someone's trying to prove something to you. Others, with other needs, may demand more or less proof.

For example:

A machinist is not happy if you say "A metal pole about 4 feet long." If you say "About 48 inches long," then they're less disappointed. If you say "48 inches to within 1/4 of an inch," they're satisfied.

The analogy is:

If you say "Well it was a black guy and he's black," that's enough for a KKK member to be convinced. If you say "It was probably him because he was in the area at the time." Well, that's a bit better.

If you say "It could only have been him or somebody else, and the somebody else was the one that called the police about it to report the crime and who was holding down the suspect when he was arrested."
Then it's good enough for most people.

 

[adumbrodeus]

Hmmm, interesting read ALT.

Is this an actual DEBATE PICK A SIDE topic or just a topic to kick back and have an intellectual discussion?

Anyway, I think that it's not your decision to make what the burden of proof is for proving to anyone but yourself. Same goes for the judge. You can decide the burden of proof if someone's trying to prove something to you. Others, with other needs, may demand more or less proof.

For example:

A machinist is not happy if you say "A metal pole about 4 feet long." If you say "About 48 inches long," then they're less disappointed. If you say "48 inches to within 1/4 of an inch," they're satisfied.

The analogy is:

If you say "Well it was a black guy and he's black," that's enough for a KKK member to be convinced. If you say "It was probably him because he was in the area at the time." Well, that's a bit better.

If you say "It could only have been him or somebody else, and the somebody else was the one that called the police about it to report the crime and who was holding down the suspect when he was arrested."
Then it's good enough for most people.

Actually, for law that's really not the case.

In law, the law really does define the burden of proof, you personally merely define where you think that this is satisfied.

I know it sounds the same, but realistically it simply isn't, and you'll see it in argument styles and the way the judges instruct juries, etc, but this is especially true of judges due to their extensive training in the area.

What happens, is generally there's what the law says is the standard, and people affix their personal standards somewhere within the vicinity.


The thing is, in civil law, the standard is very thin, which means it's very easy to convict on civil cases. The standard is Preponderance of the evidence which means (and yes Alt, it does have an explicit legal definition) that the facts are more probable one way then the other.


However, this must be weighed against something else, it's quite a bit more difficult to sue in the first place in civil court then in criminal. Lawyers are very expensive, and cases take a long time to resolve, in addition, certain groups tend to have access to better lawyers (namely the better-moneyed).

An increase in the burden of proof to "beyond a reasonable doubt" is very likely to mean that no matter what happened to you, you'll never get a guilty verdict if you're not upper-class, unless you get a pro bono lawyer that is, and how often does that happen? Practical reality just makes this the case.

There is however, a third standard to consider, Clear and convincing evidence, which requires it to be substantially more likely that the version of events occurred then not.

 

[Zero Beat]

Here we go again with recursion.

I love people who ignore huge incurable errors. Not a "We don't know yet" error, like "Where does additional genetic information come from?" but "This is provably wrong" errors like "Only one person's decision gets to stick." I like how only one person's decision gets to stick but you get to appeal to as many people as you want.

Recursion gets mighty fun mighty quick:-p.

Protip: Question questions. Watch watchers. Rule rulers. Kill killers. There's actually two separate but clear trends in recursion:

Things that self-nullify, and things that amplify, when recursed. For example:
A recursive no is a yes, A recursive yes is a...? Respect for respect creates greater respect. Apathy about apathy doesn't do anything. Hatred of hatred is just stupid. I mean, you can hate hatred, but then you're back at square 0. You see how that works?

 

[AltF4]

1) This topic was intended to just be about Civil Trials in the US. Not burden of proof "in general". I thought that was pretty clear in the OP.

2) I have no idea how your last post applies to anything, Zero Beat. I'm sorry!


adumbrodeus: Is there a term for the current Civil Trial burden of proof? I haven't been able to find one yet. Everywhere I look just says something to the effect of "the plaintiff has to demonstrate that the claims are probably true. Something with greater than 50% probability."

Though "clear and convincing evidence" sounds like a good standard. Weaker than "beyond a reasonable doubt" but strong enough to satisfy the assertions I made above, quite likely. I don't really have any objections (pun intended) to that.

 

[Aesir]

Okay I'm going to give you guys an example because I think it describes it best, I'm advocating to keep preponderance of the evidence.

lets say I'm driving and Alt is driving, instead of keeping my eyes on the road I'm texting on my cell phone. Now Alt isn't paying attention to the road because something on the sidewalk got his attention. What happens? well one of us looks up tries to swerve and an accident takes place. Lets say alt was the one who looked up and swerved, making me look liable. Alt if furious and sues me, now in the civil trial negligence from both parties will be brought up, eventually a verdict will come and no one will be awarded money.

Why? sure Alt may have proven his case but the fact remains he was liable as well. So no money will be awarded to anyone.

Makes sense? it doesn't really matter if you can prove that said person was negligent, if you your self were negligent you're not going to get the full amount of money.

 

[AltF4]

I also wanted to follow up on this topic:

I have changed my mind! I was talking about something similar to this with a friend who is far more properly trained in legal matters (I am an Engineer first, not a lawyer!) and he gave an excellent counterpoint. One that I think altered my point of view, so I felt it necessary to share it here...

Grievances against one's own government are nearly impossible to prove, even in a weak way. This is a natural outcome of them having power, and you not.

Increasing the burden of proof for civil trials would be tantamount to removing the ability for citizens to hold their government accountable for specific grievances.

This clearly outweighs the unfortunate side effect of a few "wrong calls" by judges. But this is acceptable because nobody goes to jail. This is just civil court. We can allow a minority of innocent people to be wrongly sued in the name of upholding liberty. Unlike criminal court, where it is specifically intended that we let lots of guilty people go free to ensure that no innocents are put in jail.

 

[Greenstreet]

Hm, that's very interesting. I don't understand why you say the brightest minds going to law is a bad thing. Some people can be more suited to law, and American Law isn't as... influential as before. It is no longer being exported or setting a precedent around the world, so if our bright minds can make it as great as it was before, I don't see a problem with it.

Also, I'm not sure about the Burden of Proof for the civil cases because are there really enough evidence in civil trials to say, "He did this much damage to my ______________?" I mean, you have to prove he did the damage and that the damage was worth that much. That's 2 proofs... =/ Iunno. Too bad I have no experiences with civil cases.

I know in Australia, in civil cases it is decided on the balance of probabilities (more than 50% chance of being likely to have happened), and in criminal it is beyond reasonable doubt.
Australia too, is starting to head down the pathway into a far too litigous society, especially with medical negligence it seems. I do think that the balance of probabilities here is far too simple, you merely have to prove that it wasn't unlikely. Which sucks.

And what type of action are we talking about in particular... I mean laws regarding defamation will certainly differ from negligence cases and at least here, defamation law is pretty well put together relation to actual proof of damage.

Meh sorry for bringin other countries in...

 

[Aesir]

You guys realize you can appeal lawsuits right? As in once something is decided if you are unhappy with the ruling you can appeal the decision.

Not only that in negligence cases if you're being sued for being negligent all you have to do is show the party suing you was negligent themselves which caused their injury or damages. Also the Reason why it's only a preponderance of the evidence, as opposed to beyond a reasonable doubt is because civil cases won't send you to jail.