Park Law


“We did nothing wrong - So why are we being sued and how do we make it all go away?”


Heather M. Eichenbaum, Esquire has the answer In short,


anyone can file a lawsuit alleging anything.


T


he mystery of the litigious age in which we live persists. The most common questions I get from new industry clients relate to the legal process and the most frequent comments I get are disbelief and frustration that lawsuits can be filed, and usually proceed, even when the client is confident that it did nothing wrong. These concerns are exacerbated for the small client, the client new to the industry, and the client that is based in a venue less litigious than the United States - simply because they tend to not have as much experience with litigation.


In short, anyone can file a lawsuit alleging anything. The legal system weeds out cases that unquestionably do not set forth a recognised cause of action (such as “negligence”) as a matter of law. However, cases that might state a recognised cause of action, depending


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on the alleged facts, are allowed to proceed. The key term here is “alleged”, because the standard for the court deciding on dismissal of a lawsuit in most venues requires that the allegations be accepted as true even though there is no actual evidence in the lawsuit to support the allegations. In other words, the person suing is given every benefit of the doubt that their claim has merit as long as the facts that are alleged set forth any accepted legal cause of action. Once a lawsuit is allowed to proceed, the parties advance into “discovery.” “Discovery” is exactly what the name suggests – it affords each party the opportunity to “discover” evidence that it believes supports its case or its defenses to the cause of action. In this phase of litigation, written questions and requests for documents and other tangible evidence


DECEMBER 2020


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