How Florida business lawsuits really work
Video Description
Business lawsuits in Florida start with the pleadings phase. That is where the parties file documents with the court. The second phase is discovery which is where the parties exchange and obtain information through depositions, document and information requests. The third phase is the resolution either by a trial, mediation, settlement, summary judgment, or even arbitration.
In this video Florida Bar Board Certified expert business lawyer David Steinfeld explains these three basic parts of a business lawsuit and what happens in each phase. Mr. Steinfeld also tells you how your business can save money in these business disputes and make any dispute more cost effective.
In this video Florida Bar Board Certified expert business lawyer David Steinfeld explains these three basic parts of a business lawsuit and what happens in each phase. Mr. Steinfeld also tells you how your business can save money in these business disputes and make any dispute more cost effective.
Video Transcript
Hello, I'm Dave Steinfeld a Florida Bar Board Certified business litigation attorney. That means I'm an expert in business litigation law in the State of Florida. This video that you're about to watch is from a talk that I gave entitled “A primer on business litigation”. This particular topic will examine the phases of a lawsuit. This video is not intended to provide legal advice to you but merely to give you some general background information on the topic. After you've had an opportunity to watch this video please take a look at my other videos and articles on my website www.DavidSteinfeld.com. Thanks for watching.
The phases of a Florida civil lawsuit
Let me tell you now and talk to you a little bit about the phases of a lawsuit and how a lawsuit is put together. There are essentially three basic parts three phases of a lawsuit of civil litigation, there is the pleadings phase in the beginning, there is the discovery phase in the middle, and there's the trial phase at the end. The pleadings phase as we call it is where the party that starts the lawsuit the plaintiff files documents in court which notifies the other parties or the defendant if there's only one what the claims are, why are they suing, what's this about. That can then go back and forth with motion practice if they don't properly plead those allegations. There can be other claims brought against third parties. There can be a counterclaim brought by the defendant against the plaintiff there are various methods and procedures that can be used to essentially narrow the issues that will ultimately go to the trial.
A civil suit unlike a criminal suit where the authorities would gather all the information before they generally bring a case and know what the facts are is in some ways the polar opposite. A lot of times a business may know that something has happened, some contract has been breached or a customer list has been taken, but they may not know the full scope and extent of it. Therefore when they bring the claims they have to engage in what we call the discovery process where the plaintiff has to go and get the information in order to prove it. They may have to go to third parties, they may go to the defendant and the defendant likewise has the ability to conduct discovery of what the plaintiff’s claims are as well.
A civil suit unlike a criminal suit where the authorities would gather all the information before they generally bring a case and know what the facts are is in some ways the polar opposite. A lot of times a business may know that something has happened, some contract has been breached or a customer list has been taken, but they may not know the full scope and extent of it. Therefore when they bring the claims they have to engage in what we call the discovery process where the plaintiff has to go and get the information in order to prove it. They may have to go to third parties, they may go to the defendant and the defendant likewise has the ability to conduct discovery of what the plaintiff’s claims are as well.
The discovery phase in a Florida civil lawsuit
This discovery phase of the lawsuit is where generally most of the cost and expense of a lawsuit is incurred. That's why it's vitally important to plan out your transactions in advance with your attorney to understand the language that you're using in contracts and particularly when it comes to electronic discovery to store materials after you have consulted with your attorney in such a way that it makes it easy to access them for you and in discovery as well.
I'll give you an example of how planning can make it a lot easier to avoid substantial litigation and to take some of the variables out of common litigation. I have a client that does a particular proprietary form of doctor assisted weight loss which is fairly common you see these commercials on TV this is a very special manner of doing it and it's proprietary to their business.
They wanted to go to other large corporations as a vendor that have say thousands of employees and bring their proprietary method of weight loss to those businesses so that it benefits the employees and reduces the health costs of the large businesses. A large business has a greater capacity to copy the information to take that proprietary information and use it for their own devices and even say to a smaller business why don't you sue us it will take several years to go through court and we'll see whether or not you can withstand that economic battle that's coming. A small business realistically looking through the looking glass on that can't afford to do that they just cannot afford those large litigation expenses.
So the way that you can avoid those from a business perspective is to prior to any dispute plan in how that information can be protected and preserved. And the method that we developed is to have all of the individuals from the big company who are going to receive this proprietary information sign agreements to maintain the materials as confidential. Likewise when they enter the meeting to receive this information they have to sign in on log indicating that they were there and the company keeps a copy of the presentation.
I'll give you an example of how planning can make it a lot easier to avoid substantial litigation and to take some of the variables out of common litigation. I have a client that does a particular proprietary form of doctor assisted weight loss which is fairly common you see these commercials on TV this is a very special manner of doing it and it's proprietary to their business.
They wanted to go to other large corporations as a vendor that have say thousands of employees and bring their proprietary method of weight loss to those businesses so that it benefits the employees and reduces the health costs of the large businesses. A large business has a greater capacity to copy the information to take that proprietary information and use it for their own devices and even say to a smaller business why don't you sue us it will take several years to go through court and we'll see whether or not you can withstand that economic battle that's coming. A small business realistically looking through the looking glass on that can't afford to do that they just cannot afford those large litigation expenses.
So the way that you can avoid those from a business perspective is to prior to any dispute plan in how that information can be protected and preserved. And the method that we developed is to have all of the individuals from the big company who are going to receive this proprietary information sign agreements to maintain the materials as confidential. Likewise when they enter the meeting to receive this information they have to sign in on log indicating that they were there and the company keeps a copy of the presentation.
Preparing in case for litigation
Now where does that leave the company. When you look down the road it puts me as the litigation attorney in a position to stand before a jury and say ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you saw the method that my client uses which is a proprietary method, we have the agreement signed by Mr. Bob Smith of the big corporation to keep this information confidential, and we have Mr. Smith's name and signature on the sign-in law proving that in fact he was at this presentation where my client presented the information. Not coincidentally six months later Mr. Bob Smith of big corporation rolls out his own internal weight loss program which happens to be identical to the program that my client presented. If you were sitting on a jury I don't think it would be too much to ask for the members here today to put two and two together and say big company stole little companies idea.
By planning it out in that manner in advance and even selecting the forum in the agreement to maintain this material confidential my client who is a much smaller business than the big company has taken control of the situation and put itself in a position to be able to dissuade the larger corporation from even taking that information but if it were to happen to maximize the opportunities to prevail in that litigation.
One last factor for businesses to consider is whether to go to a jury or to a non-jury. There's a lot of debate and dispute all over the place on that. The best information that I can convey to you is to sit down with your attorney and in conjunction with discussing all these other matters discuss in your agreements whether you would like to go before the jury or a judge.
By planning it out in that manner in advance and even selecting the forum in the agreement to maintain this material confidential my client who is a much smaller business than the big company has taken control of the situation and put itself in a position to be able to dissuade the larger corporation from even taking that information but if it were to happen to maximize the opportunities to prevail in that litigation.
One last factor for businesses to consider is whether to go to a jury or to a non-jury. There's a lot of debate and dispute all over the place on that. The best information that I can convey to you is to sit down with your attorney and in conjunction with discussing all these other matters discuss in your agreements whether you would like to go before the jury or a judge.
