The continuation
of the story
[2a] Protective Orders: Your mouth will be sealed until the case ends. This could be another three years. By which time, no one will care.
[3] Survive motions to dismiss: Unlike when you are being persecuted, there is no evidence attached to motions to dismiss. Most fancy lawyers will rely on fancy case law that neither your lawyer nor you will understand. It is what is called a "technicality", and depending upon the friendliness of the court to your opponents, your fight will just end right here.
[4]
Discovery is Open: If your complaint survives and gets to this point, get ready to be poor. You have to a) ask for relevant documents, b) ask questions of your opponents. They will do the same to you. This is a flood of documents. Mostly irrelevant documents. There is no way of knowing what has been hidden. Even if you know a document exists and you get a
motion to compel, you will not get the documents you want. Questions asked of you will be about your character and health and family even if you are suing about hot coffee burning you. You will provide what you have, they will not. Your lawyer will get tired of taking your money and decide to move on.
[5]
Depositions: Now your lawyer gets to charge you really large sums. Any people your lawyer selects and your opponents select, have to sit in a room and answer questions. Most of the testimony will not be used. In fact, none will be used from the vast majority. But the lawyers will insist on interviewing for a whole day. This is under an "oath". But if you say "I don't recall precisely" first, then you can lie your heart out. Or you can say "I didn't come prepared for this" and then proceed to lie your heart out. Unless you have a trust fund, you will be really poor by now.
[6]
Pay the judge's friends: At this point the judge will appoint a former judge or another friend as a person you must talk to. They will charge by the hour. Depending upon how strong your case is, you will be forced to undergo this torture and pay for it. You could be a continent away and will be forced to attend in person. Your opponents will not have any intention of actually settling the matter. And if they have say, stolen your car, no intention of returning it. The whole idea is to see how much more money you have left.
[7]
Summary judgement: At this point, both your lawyer and opponents' lawyer will file paperwork asking for a judge's decision before a trial. This is another way of spending more money. In all cases, the judge will deny one or two claims of each side, and unless you have really upset the judge, the case can go to trial.
[8] Scheduling Delays: At this point the burdened court system (1% of cases go to trial!) will say they can not find a court date or judge for you and force you through more mediation meetings. They will tell you "now is the most leverage you have", and "the court can not give you what you can get now". In other cases, they (your opponents) will just work out a deal with your lawyer. He gets what he wants afterward, even if you win the trial, you will only lose. In the mean time, the lawyers will make a list of documents they will use during the trial.
[9]
Trial Procedure: If you actually get to here, be prepared to spend your provident fund. The first step is getting a jury selected. A crowd of local residents has been forced to show up. the judge will throw out anyone remotely qualified to understand the matter. Then, the lawyers will object to any educated persons left. In the end, you 5-6 elderly mostly uneducated individuals will be forced to sit through a week of legal wrangling. And another 2-3 people will join them as "alternates". You can rest assured that if you were worrying about a matter worth crores, no one in this group would have ever seen or dreamed of that amount. These individuals will be further instructed to decide only a few limited things. This is entirely based on the whims of the judge. For example, The jury may decide guilty/not-guilty, and the lawyers will decide what monetary amounts are to be associated with it. The jury does not get to decide the money. In short, even this worst case scenario, it is a powerless group, forced to sit through a week or more of obscure arguments, bored to death, and wanting to go home. If there is a weekend in the middle, you can be sure they will remember nothing on Monday.
[10]
Trial: You will sit quietly, except when called as a witness to the stand. Your lawyer and their lawyer will call people to the stand and ask them question. The jury will try to stay awake. The judge will exclaim "you must be wondering how we can find the time to take these cases!". You will be poorer still.
[11]. Outcome: When both lawyers run out of arguments, they rest. The judge asks the jury to deliberate. They basically want to sign a piece of paper ("the judgement sheet") get paid and go home. The judge at this point will tell you "you have not suffered", even if you are missing a leg now, and tell you they are not inclined to award any damages. The law does not provide for attorney's fees. So even if the jury provides a guilty verdict on all counts, you will get nothing. Your lawyer will want your first-born in lieu of even more time he has spent.
[13]. Consequences: The outcome is immaterial. Unless you are a young white women, no one will care. The judge will write the minimal in the record so no one can know what the case was about unless they were a lawyer. The rest of the documents will be sealed or "held in judges chambers". You will be needed to shred anything you have received. Your opponents will laugh at you regardless of the judgement. Matters will remain as they were before the trial, even if you won.
And this is why, not only should you be afraid of the US cops, you should never dare to try the legal system. And this is the "kinder" civil procedure. In the other (criminal), you are already guilty by being black, before any procedure.
Now as Obelix once said:
Obelix wrote:
अब मैं समझा, उसका हाथ अब खाली है।
We can continue with the story. The time has come.