Civil courts do not render verdicts. Civil judges don’t declare a defendant guilty or innocent. Instead, civil courts render what are known as judgments. Sometimes judgments involve monetary awards. Other times they do not. It is all very fascinating if you enjoy things like court cases and attorney arguments.
For the purposes of this post, we will focus mainly on monetary awards and the fact that not all civil cases produce them. Furthermore, a court may render a decision in which the losing party must pay the winning party’s legal expenses, or even a fine if the case involves a government agency, all without returning a monetary award.
When Money Is Awarded
When money is awarded in a civil case, the award could be tied to any number of things. Take a contract dispute case in which one party profited by breaching the contract. A judgment against that party could result in a monetary award forcing that party to make a payment in the amount of its anticipated profit. In that way, the losing party enjoys no financial gain for breaching the contract.
In tort cases, monetary awards are related to personal injury. A court might award differing amounts of money to cover medical costs and pain and suffering. Money may be awarded for lost income. And in some cases, monetary awards include punitive damages.
Monetary awards can even be handed down for breach of legal duty, payment of an outstanding debt, or to restore the financial position of the plaintiff. Truly, the possibilities are endless.
Collecting Money Awards
When judgments do result in monetary awards, collecting the award is often the most difficult part of the process. Take a typical debt collection case. The debt in question exists because the defendant lacks the financial resources to pay it. In many cases, collection is like getting blood from a stone.
Smart judgment creditors will bring in a collection agency as quickly as possible. One such agency is Salt Lake City’s Judgment Collectors. The agency specializes exclusively in recovering money judgments. Bringing them in during the early stages of collection only increases the chances of success.
When Judgments Don’t Involve Money
The premise of this post is that not all civil cases result in monetary judgments. The fact is that civil courts have quite a bit of latitude in righting the injustices that come before them. How they do so largely depend on the nature of a given case. Here are some possibilities:
- Injunction – When a civil case revolves around an ongoing behavior by the defendant, the court can order an injunction against that behavior. An injunction legally compels the defendant to stop doing whatever they are doing.
- Declaratory Judgment – Some civil cases are filed in order to clarify the rights and responsibilities of the parties involved. Clarification from the bench would come by way of a declaratory judgment.
- Nominal Damages – In a small number of civil cases, a plaintiff wins the case despite suffering no real, tangible harm. The court would award a nominal penalty, perhaps as low as $1.
A variety of additional remedies are on the table. A court could order the transfer of certain property, the recission of a contract, or even the nullifying of an agreement between the two parties. Remedies do not have to involve monetary awards.
Having access to so many remedies is one of the many things that differentiate civil court from its criminal counterpart. In criminal court, you have three options: guilty, not guilty, or acquittal. Civil courts have many more options to work with.