The Pretrial Phase
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
- Understand how judges can push parties into pretrial settlement.
After considerable discovery, one of the parties may believe that there is no triable issue of law or fact for the court to consider and may file a motion with the court for summary judgment. Unless it is very clear, the judge will deny a summary judgment motion, because that ends the case at the trial level; it is a “final order” in the case that tells the plaintiff “no” and leaves no room to bring another lawsuit against the defendant for that particular set of facts (res judicata). If the plaintiff successfully appeals a summary judgment motion, the case will come back to the trial court.
Prior to the trial, the judge may also convene the parties in an effort to investigate the possibilities of settlement. Usually, the judge will explore the strengths and weaknesses of each party’s case with the attorneys. The parties may decide that it is more prudent or efficient to settle than to risk going to trial.
Pretrial Conference
At various times during the discovery process, depending on the nature and complexity of the case, the court may hold a pretrial conference to clarify the issues and establish a timetable. The court may also hold a settlement conference to see if the parties can work out their differences and avoid trial altogether. Once discovery is complete, the case moves on to trial if it has not been settled. Most cases are settled before this stage; perhaps 85 percent of all civil cases end before trial, and more than 90 percent of criminal prosecutions end with a guilty plea.
EXERCISES
- What if there was not a doctrine of res judicata? What would the legal system be like?
Mayer, Warner, Siedel, Lieberman, Martina’s The Legal Environment and Advanced Business Law Section 3.4 (v. 1.0) is licensed under a Creative Commons CC-BY-NC 3.0 license.