|
Just to catch up with Zlick's legal primer, the first opportunity that a party being sued has to have the case thrown out is when they must answer the lawsuit (within 20 days of being served, if the plaintiff makes the proverbial federal case out of it) with what's called - with a straight face no less - a Demurrer. It sounds as if the defendant is simply too shy to answer the charges, but it means that they want the court to notice that the plaintiff does not have a case.
Most demurrers do not succeed. If there are defects in the plaintiff's allegations of their initial complaint, they are usually given leave by the court to amend that complaint to fix such defects. Rarely is a case just thrown out, because it's very rare that attorneys file a complaint that is insufficient on its face to allege a cause or causes of action against the defendant.
The next chance the defendant has to have the case disposed of is to make a motion for a summary judgment, in which the actual merits of the case are considered and not merely the allegations. This, however, is almost always done by the plaintiff - believing they have a slam-dunk case - and very rarely by a defendant trying to prove there's no valid case against them.
If both of these things go south for the defendant, they can look forward to about a year and half of discovery battles, and depositions ... and a trial at the end of that almost two year process.
Then, the appeals begin. And big cases can usually see swift justice resolve the matter in about a decade.
|