If you have filed a personal injury lawsuit, you will be subjected to a summary judgment motion. Here are some quick information about it:
Why should you care about the summary judgment?
You can consider the summary judgment to be the ‘capstone’ of any personal injury case. Your personal injury lawyer will tell you that if the summary judgment motion is granted in your case, the defendant is acquitted and your case is settled without you receiving the settlement that you deserve. If the summary judgment is withheld, you can still sue the defendant for a settlement.
Do you know what a motion for summary judgment is?
Your personal injury lawyer in Yorba Linda knows that it is essentially a request that the defense will file with the courts that asks the judge and jury to rule on a particular case in a particular way. Generally, the motion asks the court to rule in favor of the defendant. While this may seem to be unnecessary, it can actually help speed up the trial and may even work to your (the plaintiff) favor. The attempts to resolve key issues that may be slowing down the progress of the trial. For example, it can dictate the types of evidence that both sides can show the court. It can also determine if your (the plaintiff) allegations against the defendant warrant a real case. If the court decides on a particular ruling in a summary judgment, the judge and jury won’t be deliberating on it.
If you are the moving party, you must prove that the facts presented before the court that pertain to your case are undisputed. You must further prove that neither a judge nor a jury needs to hear the case because the facts by themselves will lead both to rule in your favor.
Burden of the moving party
Either you or the defendant can make a motion for summary judgment. It’s up to you (the moving party) to prove that there are no genuine issues of material fact at issue in terms of your case. You must also prove that the facts are undisputed and that for this reason, neither the judge nor a jury needs to deliberate on them. You can use all information you used to draft your case to make a motion for summary judgment.
Opposition and reply
If you’re the non moving party and you want to oppose a motion for summary judgment, you must use the same evidence to prove that issues of fact do indeed exist. You must also prove that these facts would give the judge or jury good reason to rule in your favor.
If the other party does issue a motion for summary judgment and you don’t oppose, keep in mind that the motion will probably be granted. However, all is not lost because your personal injury lawyer will tell you to refute the motion and explain to the courts why the motion should not be granted.
Hearing and decision
This is when the judge hears the motion. If the judge finds that there is material evidence for the case to continue, the motion will be denied and the case will continue. You can indeed win a motion for summary judgment provided you have some understanding of the information discussed in this article. It also helps to hire a good personal injury lawyer.