Court Filings That Are Not Decisions on the Merits
News outlets frequently report on documents filed in court. But it is common for people to misunderstand what the court filings mean. This is especially true when the filing is not a decision by the judge on the merits of the case. So I thought it would be helpful to talk about some of these filings and what they do and do not mean.
Why should you read this post about various court filings?
You saw something crazy in the news and want to know that it’s not really that crazy.
It’s a beautiful day outside and you hate beautiful days.
A condition of your uncle’s will is that you need to read this post before inheriting his fortune.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newspaper#/media/File:2010_newspaper_press_France_5125942563.jpg
Motions to Dismiss on Procedural Grounds
Courts decide cases for various reasons. Sometimes those reasons are that the court has rejected the plaintiff’s substantive argument or the defendant’s substantive defense. But often, courts make decisions that result in a dismissal or a judgment based on procedural rules. For example, in a recent case, some Floridians challenged the state’s changes to Walt Disney World’s legal status in response to its opposition to the state’s new homophobic law. The judge dismissed the case, but not because it rejected the plaintiff’s arguments about the First Amendment, but because the proper plaintiff for such a lawsuit was Disney and not random state residents.
Frequently, people will see cases get dismissed or not dismissed, and discuss these decisions as if they were decisions on the merits of the case. But just because a case failed to meet certain procedural requirements or did meet those requirements is not a statement about the merits of the case itself. And so these discussions may be misinterpreting the court’s decision.
Now, there are reasons for people to discuss these decisions as if they were discussions on the merits. For one thing, people may care more about outcomes than about legal reasoning. So people may be excited or disappointed about the status of the case based on its merits. And it is also true that a court could come up with whatever legal reasoning it wants to arrive at a result that it may actually want for different reasons. So people may suspect that a court held that the case was dismissed or not dismissed on procedural grounds as a proxy for its true feelings about the merits.
Complaints and Answers
Most lawsuits start with the filing of a complaint. The complaint is where a plaintiff states its allegations.
Many people may believe that, because a plaintiff submitted the allegations in court, that the court has found them likely to be true. And news articles may report something as if it is true, adding that their source is allegations in a complaint. For example, the lede in one article states that “Executives at a metals warehouse firm owned by commodities group Glencore allegedly ordered workers to falsify documents in New Orleans to manipulate the zinc market” but then states that these are just allegations in a complaint.
But the truth is that anyone can put anything in a complaint. The court doesn’t approve the contents of the complaint when it’s filed, so people should be careful when giving a statement more credibility because it appears in a filed complaint than they would if it were said in another context. It is true that lawyers have a duty not to put things in a complaint they believe are untrue, but often lawyers defer to their clients about what is likely true.
Similarly, an answer is where a defendant generally denies allegations and assert affirmative defenses. Strategically, parties deny most things in an answer and assert as many affirmative defenses as they can, because if they do not, they may lose the chance to do so later. So people may discuss a denial or defense in an answer as the defendant’s actual legal strategy or position when it may just be them preserving their rights. So, for example, a defendant in a personal injury case may include in their answer the defense that the plaintiff bears responsibility for their injury. This may be interpreted by others as the defendant blaming the victim for their own misconduct, but the defendant may not actually be doing that (at least not yet), but instead just preserving all of the possible defenses.
Dismissals
Parties voluntarily withdraw their lawsuits frequently. They may do so because there was a settlement or because they no longer want to pay for the lawsuit or because they no longer believe in the merits of the case. But just because they withdraw the case, doesn’t mean that the lawsuit failed. It could be that the defendant agreed to give the plaintiff nearly everything they wanted, which happens sometimes. As a result, people should be hesitant to guess why a lawsuit was withdrawn.