As our population continues to grow, so grows our national appetite for litigation. Our citizens are living longer and working longer, and with every passing year it becomes more likely that we’ll be confronted by the need to defend ourselves against claims of impropriety or the need to go to court to claim or reclaim what is rightfully ours. This is true for everyone, regardless of age or employment status.
I am not a pessimistic person, but there is an adage that I have unfortunately found to be quite true. It goes like this: “Whenever you acquire anything of value, there will always be someone who will try to take it away from you.”
That someone might be the firm that manages your investments, the company you hired to build that addition on your house, or the neighbor next door. It is not altogether unlikely that you will someday find yourself in a position of having to go to court to recover something that has been unjustly taken from you, or to defend yourself against an allegation of wrongdoing. If and when that happens, you need to be prepared to deal with the process. If you’re like most of us in America, you have a blind spot when it comes to our legal system.
According to the U.S. State Department, “The federal and state court systems of the United States hear an estimated 100 million cases a year before approximately 2,200 federal justices and 31,000 state and local judges.” The cost to the American public is impossible to quantify accurately, but the Tillinghast insurance consulting practice of Towers Perrin (a global professional-services firm) estimates the direct cost of tort (non-contract) litigation in 2006 was $261 billion. As the Pacific Research Institute points out, direct costs pale in the face of the indirect costs associated with tort litigation in our nation, which they estimate to be no less than $865 billion annually. Indirect costs were defined as “costs for such things as lost jobs and retirement savings, unnecessary deaths due to health care inaccessibility, lower investments in research and development, and a considerably lesser degree of economic competitiveness.” No matter how you slice it, that’s a lot of money. Litigation in America is big business.
The process of litigation is really quite unlike people’s perception of “going to court” – if indeed they have any perception of it at all. Most of us have watched courtroom scenes in movies or on television; many of us have known someone who has been involved in a lawsuit, or have had some experience that leads us to believe we have a basic understanding of the process. Believe me, once you become involved in litigation on a personal level you will find it surprisingly more complex than you imagined, and you will wish you were better prepared. I speak from experience: I have been involved in several lawsuits in my 60 plus years, and I still wish I was better prepared.
I am not a lawyer. I am an independent businessman. I have been called an entrepreneur, but I think that sounds haughty. Independent businessman suits me. During my years in business I have been sued once and I have brought suit against another on two related occasions. I have also been involved in a lawsuit as one of several parties joined in a real property title and access dispute. Being self-employed and having a somewhat flexible work schedule, I have been able to immerse myself in these cases to a degree others might find difficult. Consequently, I have learned a great deal from my direct involvement. This book draws on my first hand experience to provide you, the reader, with some information that I hope will prove quite useful should you become involved in a court case. It is my sincere hope that it will help you make better decisions that will result in a happier outcome. By that I don’t imply that what I offer here will help you win your case. It might. In all probability it might prevent you from losing your case because you were totally unprepared, and it might help you cope better. Perhaps you won’t be as apt to become disoriented by the process.
Although I know others who have had interesting and educational experiences at court, I have confined my references to cases that I have been involved in personally. While I have no reason to question the stories of others, I know the facts in the cases I have participated in, and I have the factual documentation to use as reference materials.
I confess that my batting average at court is poor; it’s a solid .250 – hardly sufficient to qualify for the silver slugger award. Because most of my experiences at court have not been positive, most of the instances I relate deal with hazards to be avoided in the legal process. The examples therefore focus on the negative, because it is often from negative experience that we learn to find positive solutions. Besides, I’ll bet that those with far better batting averages would not represent their courtroom experiences as altogether “positive.”
This text is therefore intended to be instructional without being tedious, rather than purely entertaining. Above all, I hope you find it enlightening.
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