What is Civil Litigation?

Litigation is the process of going to court to settle a dispute. Examples include contract disputes, personal injury claims, employment disputes, and divorce. Much civil litigation is concerned with contracts or torts. If you cause someone damage or breach a contract, you can be sued and forced to pay to compensate for the harm done, or made to complete the contract. For example, if a store owner lets their stairs become slippery and someone slips and hurts themselves, that may be the tort of negligence and the store owner may have to pay for the injury.

Who is involved

Civil law deals with relationships between individuals. In law, an individual can be a person, a company or an organization. Civil law cases involve at least one individual filing a claim against one or more other individuals, based on either federal or provincial laws.The people or institutions who are directly involved in a lawsuit (by either starting it or defending against it) are called the “parties”. The party who starts the lawsuit is called the “plaintiff” or “applicant”  and the party they are suing is called the “defendant” or “respondent”.   A civil lawsuit will be titled in the style of Jones v. ABC Corp., where Jones is suing ABC Corp.

How it starts

A civil lawsuit starts when the plaintiff files the initiating documents (the “pleadings”) at the correct courthouse. The plaintiff then informs the defendant of the lawsuit and gives them a chance to reply. 

If someone says that they are going to “sue” someone, that means they are planning civil litigation. In addition to “suing someone”, a civil litigation case can be called:

• An action
• A matter
• A lawsuit
• A proceeding
• A case

Standard of Proof 

Standard of proof means the level of evidence needed to prove the lawsuit. 

Proof in civil litigation is on a “Balance of probabilities”. This means that a judge must be satisfied that it is more likely than not that something happened. This is a lower standard than in criminal litigation. There, facts must be proven “Beyond a reasonable doubt”.