What’s My Legal Claim?
You may be tempted to bring a lawsuit against a company that has wronged you in some way. However, it is important to understand that you will need to have grounds upon which to pursue litigation. Otherwise, the court may dismiss the case, and you will be stuck with the associated time and expenses of filing a lawsuit.
Typical cases that justify suing a company include instances in which the company:
• Failed to deliver a product or service that you paid for
• Delivered defective or incomplete products
• Was responsible for an accident that caused you an injury, either personally or to your property
• Failed to pay you wages or commissions for your work
• Broke a contract with you or otherwise engaged in unfair business practices.
There are many other examples in which you might have grounds to sue a company without a lawyer. To determine whether you have legal grounds to file a lawsuit against a company, consider the details of your situation. Although you don’t need to be an expert in law, it will help if you have at least a basic understanding of what constitutes a valid legal claim . Here are a few questions you can ask yourself that will help you to determine whether you have legal grounds to pursue litigation in your case:
• Was there a contract in place?
If so, it’s important to determine whether the company violated the terms of the contract in order to cause you harm, or if you violated the terms of the contract. If the company broke the agreement first, you may have grounds to sue.
• Did the company agree to provide you with a product or service, and then fail to actually provide the product or service you paid for?
If you can clearly show that you paid for a certain product or service, and did not receive what you paid for, you can likely sue the company on the grounds that it broke the agreement and its actions caused you harm.
• Are you sure that the company is responsible for the injury or damage to your property or your person?
It is critical to have a clear understanding of who was responsible for the injury you suffered, or the damage done to your property. You must also document the injury or damage.
Once you have determined that you have grounds to bring a lawsuit against the company, you will then need to determine whether it is worth your time, effort and money to file the lawsuit in court. You could always contact a local attorney to discuss your options, and even if you don’t hire a lawyer, you may still learn some valuable information to help you in the long run.
Get Your Case Ready
Lawsuits are time-consuming and complex affairs that require careful preparation. It is absolutely vital that you teach yourself how the legal process works, what is expected of you, and what information you will need, whether or not you are planning to hire a lawyer. Unless you are a legal wizard with experience in civil court, you are going to need to prepare until you are intimately familiar with the facts of your case. That means that figuring out how to sue a company is not as simple as just drawing up a document and filing it.
Your first step to preparing your case is gathering evidence. When you file a lawsuit, you’re presenting a case that has to be carefully constructed to support your allegations. It’s likely that you’ll have an idea of what evidence and information you’ll need. You may need to take detailed notes of telephone calls with customer service representatives, personal testimony from witnesses, copies of relevant documents, etc. You’ll also need to have a list of questions for any parties involved. If there are questions you can’t answer, you may need to gather more information by sending a request for information to the companies involved. This document is called a subpoena and requests documents, whether they are paper, video, etc.
In addition to gathering evidence, you’ll need to document everything. Memorizing telephone calls and emails isn’t going to cut it; if you get a settlement offer, for example, you’ll want to have the offer itself in writing. Keep everything organized as you go; you may need to present these documents at various stages. A folder for every party involved will help you file the correct documents at the right time.
Finally, you’ll need to write out the complaint. In most cases, you’ll need to provide proof of jurisdiction (information that relates to where the lawsuit is taking place and which courts have authority over what happens), proper venue (the specific court where your case will be heard), caption (clause that includes the names of parties and the same parties who signed the order), viable causes of action (evidence of wrong-doing), prayer for relief (what you want out of the situation) and jury demands.
Filing the Lawsuit: Taking Your Claim to Small Claims Court
If you’ve done your research and believe you have a claim against a business, it may be time to start the process of filing a lawsuit. You can do this yourself without a lawyer if you believe your claim isn’t worth the trouble of hiring one. Notes: "You’re representing yourself." The first thing you’re going to want to know is where you have jurisdiction, and what to do about it if you improperly bring your action to an unqualified court. Your second concern is going to be which forms to fill out, and whether you can do so physically or electronically.
Keep in mind that small claims court has a limit to the amount you can sue for. You can’t sue a company for $20,000 in small claims court, because there’s a cap on what that court can enforce and charge. Small claims court can only hear claims for amounts of money between $10 and $10,000. Again, this depends on your state.
Most small claims courts have the same basic procedure for filing a claim. Bring two copies of your forms to the court clerk. Fill out these forms to get started. They’ll probably include a complaint (the document outlining your claim against the business) and proof of service (a document showing the business has been served a claim against them, previously informing them of the complaint). The court uses copies of these forms to show that there was service regarding your claim. The court will sign for both of these forms, and give you back the original complaint and proof of service with a signature on it.
Now that you have this signed form, you have proof your claim has been filed. If your claim is for an amount less than the maximum limit of small claims court, fees aren’t going to be an issue, they’re going to be minuscule in comparison to the fees of other courts and judges. However, these fees do vary state by state, and are typically in the range of 10-50 bucks. This said, you could be slapped with some big fees if you’re filing a small claims case against a big corporation. Make sure you identify any fees relevant to your state and get ready to shell out some cash to file your claim (regardless of how you feel about the lawyer who sued you).
Serving the Lawsuit on the Other Side
The process of serving papers – in a non-snooty fashion
When you’re suing the big bad corporation, there’s going to be a period of time where you need to serve the papers on the company (in most cases). Different state and local courts have different rules and requirements pertaining to service of papers. For example, in Florida, there are generally 4 different ways to serve a company with which you have a dispute. There are, of course, exceptions to these general rules.
I’m not going to try and recreate the new wheel of service form rules. If you want to get into the nitty gritty of serving a company in litigation in the various states, the American Bar Association’s "How To" series is a good place to start. Otherwise, the various methods of serving papers on a company are as follows:
In person delivery. In most states, you can serve a legal paper on a company by delivering it in person to the registered agent for service.
Certified mail. Most courts will allow you to serve a legal paper on a company as long as it’s mailed out via certified mail to the registered agent .
Certified mail + posting on bulletin board. Yes, an actual bulletin board.
Publication (for foreclosure and no one knows who owns the company). This will be presumptively only for when there are very few people left to give notice to, and the entity you’re suing about is a shell corporation.
Rule 5 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure deals with Service on a Company in Federal Courts – which covers all of this, too. Of course, if you’re trying to figure out how to serve a company in federal court, you either should be considering getting a lawyer to help you or have drank too much coffee and been awake for too long.
Pursuing the big bad company isn’t an easy task, by any means. But, if you play by the rules, have patience and do your homework, then you have a chance of achieving your goal. That’s the most I can assure you of when wading into court by yourself and depriving the local BigLaw firm of that juicy contingency fee windfall.
Presenting Your Case
Presented with time constraints and limitations on speaking, self-represented parties need to be as clear and concise as possible when making their cases. A good way to do this is by organizing your arguments. While you should listen to the judge’s questions and respond to them, as any unrepresented party should, if you answer the judge’s questions first, you do not need to go into detail for each of the issues you want to present to the judge. Simply state your arguments and if the judge needs more information, they will ask. By presenting your arguments up front, the judge will have any evidence in mind that you want to present and, if they do not feel that you are making your point adequately, they will ask more questions for clarification. While you do not need to go into more detail after answering the judge’s questions, you do need to be persuasive. Presenting your evidence logically and in a well-organized manner will help in this effort. You should be able to reference parts of your evidence and draw logical conclusions from the evidence you present. The judge should be able to see how your logic is supported by your evidence and follow it easily as you make your arguments. If you have too much evidence and present it in a disorganized manner, the judge may have a hard time following and interpreting your arguments. While you should keep your arguments to the point, try to get all of the relevant information out there at first so that it is easy for the judge to follow your arguments. This may involve a bit of work in reviewing your evidence and deciding how best to present it when you are actually at the hearing. As per previewed, the best way to get relevant information to the judge is through direct evidence wherever possible. Whether your direct evidence is documents, pictures, or witnesses, it should be presented before or at the hearing for the judge to review. There is an old lawyer joke that says if you have the facts, argue the facts, and if you have the law, argue the law. If you have both, you go to the judge. As a self-represented party, you must be able to make the judge see your side of the case by clearly presenting all of the direct evidence and any supportive statements from the law that prove your case. Simple is always better when it comes to your arguments and allowing the judge reach a logical conclusion based on the evidence and the law is always preferred. Sometimes, the facts and the law are exactly aligned and your case will be very easy to win. Sometimes, they are very far apart, and the judge will struggle to see your side. Hopefully, though, you will be able to win your case based on the facts and what is right, and not simply on the law.
What’s the Likely Outcome of Your Case
As with any proceeding, the outcome of a lawsuit is uncertain. Even if you win, you may or may not be awarded damages. In most cases, the court will not order the defendant to write you a check with the judgment so your damages amount should be determined either by settlement, or through a post-judgment assessment hearing. If your claim against the defendant is a tort, then the idea is to make the victim whole. The judge has discretion to determine an appropriate amount of damages. Missouri law allows for compensatory damages, consequential damages, punitive damages, and reduced or limited damages in certain circumstances. You have to clearly lay out your damages and support them with evidence if you are to win at trial. If your claim against the company is for breach of contract, you will be likely to receive expectancy damages. Expectancy damages are those that the injured party would have received if the contract had been performed properly . Expectancy damages include consequential damages, which can be difficult to calculate. You will probably need to prove the damages you suffered as a result of the breach of contract and how those damages were connected with the breach. If you do not win your case, the defendant may appeal. It will cost you additional legal fees because they will need to hire a lawyer to argue the appeal. Other possibilities exist to resolve the dispute without the judge’s involvement. Arbitration and mediation are alternatives for dispute resolution that are often less expensive for both sides. They allow you to negotiate a settlement with the other side in front of a third-party neutral, who keeps the parties focused on resolving the matter. You can also settle with the other party even if you’re in the middle of the lawsuit; in fact, most lawsuits will settle before the final verdict is given.