While it may sound far-fetched, sometimes, one of the most important things you need to decide is who to sue. Now granted, this topic applies more to cases where you are the one bringing the lawsuit than if you are defending, but it’s not exclusive…. Some of this applies to defendants as well.
Now I know what you’re going to say…. “This is stupid – I want to sue the guy that (fill in the blank with anything you like)….”
Any yes, it’s true, in some cases it’s pretty straightforward. You sue the guy that rear ended you, right?
Or you sue the guy that you signed a contract with the welched on the deal.
But is it so straightforward?
The guy that rear-ended you…. Who was he, what was he doing? What if he was running errands for work? What if he has no insurance individually? Do you really just want to sue the individual? Wouldn’t you be better off going after the company he was working for at the time?
And what about the guy that breached your contract? Why did he breach it? Did somebody else offer a better deal, or did he just decide he had better options elsewhere? Here, you might have multiple claims against other parties – which you would never have known to explore if you had just run down to the courthouse suing the original person for breach of contract.
Yes, there are some lawsuits that really are straightforward, but in most cases, there are many factors that need to be considered.
How good a case do you have against any defendant? What causes of action (more on this later) can you assert. Are there other people you can invite to the party? Do you have defendants that can afford to mount a rigorous defense? If you get a judgment against a defendant are they going to be good for the judgment?
These are all questions that you need to squarely address, long before you start writing your complaint.
If you’re the defendant don’t just succumb to the normal response – “Well it’s obvious – I have to answer the complaint I received!”
That may be right, or it may be wrong. As a defendant who has been served with a lawsuit, you really have several different options. Of course you can simply answer the complaint. But that’s not your only option – either by itself or in combination with other options.
Take a long look at the situation. In addition to answering a complaint, you can file a counterclaim. That is where you assert your own claim against the person suing you. If you’re being sued for breach of contract for example, you can counterclaim against the plaintiff, arguing that it was the plaintiff who breached the contract. Finally, there may be others involved in which you can answer the complaint against you and then file and serve a third party complaint to being other defendants, not originally named, into the lawsuit.
In order to make goof decisions regarding parties, you need to know and understand the lawsuit, the underlying facts, and most of all, the applicable law. It takes some work, but in the end it always proves to have been worthwhile when all the proper parties can be aligned and invited to participate.