Snow Jensen & Reece, P.C. is one of the largest law firms in the southern Utah area. We have supported countless clients through civil litigation. Whether your concern is a real estate dispute, allegations related to the conduct of your local governing body, or disagreements over authorized land use, we are prepared to listen to the details of your civil dispute so that we can put our team’s documented experience to work. We make it a point to remain current with Utah law and up-to-date with the latest Utah legal news, including recent changes to the Utah Rules of Civil Procedure (URCP). Contact our office today by calling (435) 628-3688 and get started by scheduling a confidential consultation.
What Is Civil Litigation?
Litigation, according to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), is the formal process of resolving disputes through the court system. Any litigation that moves through the civil, rather than criminal, courts, is considered civil litigation, and the vast majority of that litigation proceeds through state court systems, rather than through the federal district courts. Some of the most broadly familiar types of civil disputes are family law, business, real estate and personal injury claims (e.g., car accidents or premises liability). Disputes between businesses, and in some cases between businesses and state or local government entities, disputes over the fulfillment of contract terms or the ownership and permitted use of real property are much more common examples.
What Are the Steps to Civil Litigation in Utah?
Most states follow a broadly similar sequence of steps from the filing that opens a civil case until the trial begins. Where most of the jurisdictional differences in procedures arise will be in the specific details that structure each step. The timelines for motions and responses, and the formal requirements for essential steps such as service of process, do show some variability from one state to another. These jurisdiction-specific considerations, in addition to the laws that establish statutory causes of action and set frameworks for determining damages, are a major reason why it is important to work with an attorney who has experience handling litigation in the state where your case is going forward.
Complaint and Summons
The complaint sets out what the plaintiff thinks the defendant has done wrong, and what the plaintiff is asking the court to do about it. The summons gives the defendant notice of the complaint made against them, and provides the information the defendant will need in order to contest whatever “remedy” the plaintiff is seeking from the court. The summons is technically a document distinct from the complaint, but the plaintiff is responsible for filing both and in general will prepare them together.
Complaint
The formal litigation process begins with one party to a dispute filing a complaint with the appropriate court. In the complaint, the plaintiff describes the disagreement and identifies the remedy they want the court to provide. In civil disputes, this remedy will typically be requested in the form of damages, which are financial payments a plaintiff asks a court to order the defendant to make as compensation for the losses or harms the plaintiff claims to have suffered as a result of the defendant’s conduct. The purpose of the complaint is to apprise the court, and the defendant, of how the plaintiff believes themselves to have been wrong, and what the plaintiff believes is necessary to make things right.
In some instances, it may make sense instead, or in addition, for the party bringing the suit to ask the court for injunctive relief (ordering the defendant to stop doing something or to refrain from taking some action, or in rarer instances ordering the defendant to resume or begin some action they have been refusing to carry out). Depending on the circumstances, this injunctive relief may occasionally be the sole remedy the plaintiff seeks; more often, however, the injunctive relief is sought to prevent additional damages from accruing while civil litigation moves forward.
Summons
The summons identifies all parties involved in the case, provides the name and address of the court that will be handling the case, and gives contact information for the plaintiff’s attorney, or for the plaintiff personally if the complaint is filed pro se (without professional legal representation; this is usually an option only available to individual litigants). The summons also explains whether the complaint is already on file with the court (filing is the plaintiff’s responsibility and must be completed no more than 10 days after the defendant has been served with the summons).
The time a defendant has for filing the answer to the summons and complaint varies by the type of dispute, so the summons specifies how long the defendant has in which to file a response before the plaintiff will seek a default judgment from the court. The intention to seek a default judgment in the absence of a response must be stated explicitly; this requirement reflects a general principle that you can expect to see in many different ways over the course of your journey through civil litigation: A great deal of care is taken at all stages of the process to avoid ambiguity and to ensure that all involved know the stakes, the timelines, and the expectations.
Service of Process
If you are the plaintiff in a civil dispute and you are working with an attorney, then your lawyer will generally take responsibility for filing copies of the summons and the complaint with the court and for having a copy of each served on the Defendants being sued and once service has been accomplished filing the return with the court. Plaintiffs who represent themselves in civil litigation will instead need to follow the requirements for service of process listed by the Utah Courts in their Filing Procedures resources for the initial complaint and summons. As civil litigation progresses, it is very common for each party to serve the other, and on occasion even third parties, with various additional documents. Once the requirements specific to the complaint and summons have been met, these other documents may be served by following the guidelines for any method of service outlined under URCP Rule 5.
Answer
If you are the party receiving the summons, your first step is to review both that document and the complaint that accompanies it carefully. Identify what you are accused of doing (or not doing), what the plaintiff cites as the legal basis for their action (these details will be in the complaint), and where and by when you must file an answer (this information will be in the summons, instead). From here, your options depend partly on whether the complaint names you personally as the defendant, or on the other hand names a business you own or organization to which you belong.
Answering as an Individual Defendant vs. Answering as an Entity
Legal actions by individuals against businesses and by businesses against one another are both common in civil disputes, but while individuals have the legal right to represent themselves in civil disputes, the same is generally not true of business or government entities, either of which must be represented by an attorney except as provided under Utah § 78A-8-102. This difference between individuals and entities holds no matter whether the party in question is the defendant or the plaintiff, but the structure of the civil litigation process means that in most cases plaintiffs are likely to encounter these issues during their initial preparation for filing their complaints, while a defendant, particularly the owner of a small business that has never previously been sued, may sometimes be taken by surprise.
Standard Considerations
Although the legal particulars of these differences do matter, in practical terms at Snow Jensen & Reece, P.C., we typically encourage anyone who is served with a complaint and summons in Utah to seek the advice of an attorney. Even if you are being sued individually and you feel sure that you want to represent yourself in court, you may be able to find a lawyer in your area who is willing to hold an initial consultation during which he or she can review the complaint against you and give you some idea of what you can expect from the civil litigation process, based on the specifics of your case. A thorough review of the process sometimes causes individuals who were planning to handle their cases pro se to work with an attorney after all; the crucial thing is to ensure that you are in a position to make an informed decision about how to proceed, based on the available options.
Filing and Serving the Answer
In most cases, the complaint and summons will not come as a complete surprise, because most civil litigation is begun only after initial attempts at amicable (or at least less adversarial) resolution have been attempted, and have not yielded an agreement. Ideally, this prior exposure to the essential elements of the other party’s complaint will mean that you have already had an opportunity to consider the reasons why you object to satisfying the plaintiff’s demands. You will still need to organize these reasons into a formal document and prepare two copies: one for the court, and one to be served on the plaintiff. Both steps must be completed within the timeframe specified in the summons.
Disclosure to Discovery
For most types of civil litigation in Utah, the plaintiff has two weeks (14 days) from the date of service of the defendant’s answer to their complaint to make their initial disclosures. The date of service may be different from the date of filing; remember that service of process takes place when a process server is able to make contact with the defendant named in the complaint, or in some instances with their representative. Service may have to happen multiple times throughout the course of a case; the answer to the complaint is served upon the plaintiff in much the same manner that the initial complaint is served upon the defendant. Thus the date of service for the first answer is the date when the plaintiff formally receives the answer.
For the defendant in civil litigation, the time calculation for initial disclosures is different. Their deadline will be 42 days from the date when they file their answer to the complaint that opens the case. For both parties, most deadlines internal to the disclosure and discovery process are set according to Utah’s tiered system, which establishes maximum total deposition hours and time limits for fulfilling obligations based on the value of damages claimed in the case.
What Is the Relationship Between Disclosure and Discovery in Civil Litigation?
As the Utah Courts explain, disclosures and discovery are part of a back-and-forth process whereby parties to civil litigation gather information about each other’s evidence and request the information they will need to build their own cases. This process can be complicated, but you may find it helpful to start from a baseline understanding that litigants are required to provide one another with certain types of information without waiting to be asked. These are called the required “disclosures.” Each side can also ask the other for additional information that is not part of a required disclosure; the request-and-response portion of the process constitutes “discovery.”
For those who have never been through civil litigation before, it may be helpful to think of the disclosure and discovery stage of proceedings through the analogy of a fan that oscillates on a 180º radius. The process begins with initial disclosures, at one end of the oscillation arc. As the parties make their required disclosures, the fan turns through an oscillation, and fact discovery starts the return trip. With a full cycle completed, expert disclosures turn toward expert discovery, which returns the fan to its starting point with pretrial disclosures. Often those disclosures may point the way out of discovery and into the first phase of pretrial motions.
Interrogatories and Depositions
If you remember from grade school that an interrogative sentence is one that asks a question, you are already well on your way to understanding interrogatories. These are written lists of questions and the sworn answers to them, exchanged between the parties; the requirements for interrogatories are covered by URCP Rule 33, but subject to certain tiered parameters specified under URCP Rule 26.
Whereas interrogatories are written questions with written answers, depositions are “live” question and answer sessions in which individuals who may have information pertinent to the case give sworn testimony. Assuming both parties to a civil dispute are represented by attorneys, each side will have its legal representation present during a deposition, while a court reporter will ensure an official record of both questions and answers. Depositions help with trial preparation by providing key information, and in some cases the recording of a deposition may be entered as evidence during trial, rather than calling a witness to provide new testimony in the courtroom.
Alternative Dispute Resolution
Although it can be easy for participants to think of civil litigation as an ordeal, legally its primary function is to provide a non-violent mechanism for the orderly resolution of disputes. Consequently it is not surprising that one of the most commonly seen features of civil litigation is the attempt, sometimes repeated more than once over the life of a dispute, to reach a settlement out of court through alternative dispute resolution (ADR). There are two methods of ADR commonly used across many different types of civil disputes: arbitration and mediation.
Arbitration
Arbitration functions in a manner similar to a “mini-trial,” although without the legal authority that sits behind the judge in a Utah courtroom. In arbitration, each side argues their case before a neutral third party, who weighs the evidence presented and makes an independent decision based on the relative merits they see in the parties’ arguments. Arbitration is virtually always “binding,” meaning the two sides agree at the outset to accept the arbiter’s decision, whatever it may be. As a result, arbitration is often used early in a civil dispute, as a means of avoiding the costs associated with civil litigation altogether; some business contracts include provisions requiring the parties to participate in binding arbitration rather than filing legal actions in the civil courts to resolve any disputes.
Mediation
Although civil litigation can be diverted to either arbitration or mediation at any point prior to the decision of a Utah court, the way mediation works tends to make it the more common choice for post-discovery ADR. Mediation’s open-ended structure, in which the third party neutral simply seeks to foster productive discussions to help the disputants explore possible alternatives to a court-ordered resolution, can still lead naturally into a trial if no compromise is reached.
Why Pursue ADR Late in a Case?
There can be a number of advantages to attempting alternative dispute resolution after discovery, whether or not ADR has already been attempted in the same civil dispute. The exchange of information that takes place in the disclosure and discovery process makes it possible for all involved to have a firmer and more detailed understanding of the respective strengths and weaknesses of their own case as well as the opposing party’s. Even after discovery, successfully reaching a settlement through ADR can still sometimes save significant time and money compared to going through with a trial.
Pre-Trial Matters
If ADR is not successful in diverting a case from trial, or if the parties decline to attempt it, then usually there will be a series of pretrial motions filed on either side before the trial itself formally begins. Motions to exclude specific pieces of evidence are common at this stage. The parties may also “stipulate” certain agreed-upon information; the function of these stipulations is to ensure that neither side wastes time in preparation or at trial exhaustively proving the veracity of facts nobody wishes to dispute.
Transition to Trial
The move from pretrial activity to the trial proper may involve more or fewer steps depending on whether the trial is a bench vs. jury trial. A bench trial is one in which the judge hears both sides’ arguments and enters a decision; a jury trial is the process with which more people are likely familiar, in which evidence is presented before a jury, whose deliberations decide the outcome of the case. Jury trials require a jury selection process, which allows each side to ask questions of prospective jurors in order to identify potentially disqualifying factors, such as the presence of bias that could prejudice an individual juror toward one side of the case. The court may also dismiss possible jurors based on other factors, such as a juror’s claim of undue hardship. The two parties will normally be able to exercise a limited number of “veto” options, which allow them to reject individual jurors even in the absence of disqualifying criteria. In a bench trial, civil litigation proceeds directly to the opening arguments that otherwise immediately follow the jury selection process.
Civil Litigation Attorneys in Utah
Civil litigation can be challenging and in many instances incredibly complex. For this reason, it is important for anyone approaching a civil dispute in Utah to consider working with an attorney familiar with the intricacies of the type of case they are facing. Whether you are a plaintiff pursuing justice or a defendant receiving a complaint and summons, the civil litigation attorneys at Snow Jensen & Reece, P.C. are prepared to review the particulars of your situation and offer perspective based on our decades of experience in handling civil disputes. Call our office at (435) 628-3688 today to schedule a private consultation.