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Early federal and state civil procedure in the United States was rather ad hoc and was based on traditional common law procedure but with much local variety. There were varying rules that governed different types of civil cases such as "actions" at law or "suits" in equity or in admiralty; these differences grew from the history of "law" and "equity" as separate court systems in English law.
Civil and criminal cases are usually heard in different courts. In jurisdictions based on English common-law systems, the party bringing a criminal charge (in most cases, the state) is called the "prosecution", but the party bringing most forms of civil action is the " plaintiff " or " claimant ".
For example, the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) that govern civil litigation in United States courts provide that a civil action is commenced with the filing or service of a pleading called a complaint. Civil court rules in states that have incorporated the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure use the same term for the same pleading.
A lawsuit may also involve issues of public law in the sense that the state is treated as if it were a private party in a civil case, either as a plaintiff with a civil cause of action to enforce certain laws or as a defendant in actions contesting the legality of the state's laws or seeking monetary damages for injuries caused by agents of the ...
Revlon, Inc. v. MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings, Inc., 506 A.2d 173 (Delaware Supreme Court 1986) in certain limited circumstances indicating that the "sale" or "break-up" of the company is inevitable, the fiduciary obligation of the directors of a target corporation are narrowed significantly, the singular responsibility of the board being to ...
In a class action, a single plaintiff or small group of plaintiffs seeks to proceed on behalf of an entire class who have been harmed by the same conduct by the same defendants; actions against classes of defendants are also theoretically permitted. Court approval is required for this procedure to be used.
Perhaps the best known case creating an implied cause of action for constitutional rights is Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents, 403 U.S. 388 (1971). In that case, the United States Supreme Court ruled that an individual whose Fourth Amendment freedom from unreasonable search and seizures had been violated by federal agents could sue for the violation of the Amendment itself, despite the lack ...
Injunction is a court order that coerces the defendant to take specific acts or refrains him or her from engaging in certain actions, e.g., breaching a contract. [9] In the U.S., injunction is the most common type of equitable remedies, and failure to comply with an injunction can lead to results ranging from fines to imprisonment.