Marcia Clark 
Table of Contents
Civil court is an interesting place to spend some time. It is completely different from criminal court, in everything from how evidence is presented to how courts render decisions. Speaking of decisions, courts do not render verdicts in civil cases. They enter judgments. A judgment declares the winner and loser in a given case – if there is one.
The interesting thing about judgments is that they can cover just about anything. A court’s decision hinges on the details of the case itself. Therefore, a judgment entered in a personal injury case would look far different from one entered in a divorce. That is the nature of the beast.
Judgments With Monetary Awards
Monetary awards a are pretty common in most civil judgments. But not all monetary awards are the same. They can involve a variety of things, including:
- personal injury
- product liability
- contract disputes
- employment matters
- defamation, libel, slander, etc.
In something like a personal injury case, you might expect a court to award monetary compensation to pay for medical expenses, victim pain and suffering, and lost income. Some states even allow punitive damages against defendants.
Other Types of Judgments
Lawsuits involving monetary awards only make up a portion of the millions of civil cases tried in U.S. courts every year. Judgments come in many types and forms. For example, companies trying to collect bad debts from customers can seek judgments as well. A judgment entered on behalf of a company would award that company the outstanding money owed plus court costs, attorney fees, and any other related expenses. Many states allow companies to collect interest as well.
Certain divorce proceedings can result in judgments, too. A recent case out of Texas involved a divorcing couple who could not agree on whether some of their properties were community properties or owned exclusively by the husband. They had to go to court to settle the issue.
The husband’s attorney maintained that the properties were exclusively his because they were purchased using funds from a trust he established prior to the marriage. The wife’s attorney contended that the properties were community properties because they were purchased after the two were married. The court sided with the wife, entering a judgment requiring the properties be divided accordingly.
Enforcement Is the Hard Part
Regardless of how a civil judgment is structured, enforcement is the hard part in so many cases. Debt collection cases are prime example. Judgment Collectors, a Salt Lake City, UT judgment collection agency, explains that reaching the point of civil litigation is pretty strong proof that a debtor isn’t going to willingly pay. If he is willing to let things go so far as to wind up in court, he is probably willing to continue avoiding payment even after a judgment is entered against him.
Whether it’s personal injury, product liability, or the results of a divorce, civil courts don’t have the same enforcement authority as criminal courts. They enter judgments and then leave enforcement to the winning party. It is up to that party to work things out with the other.
This potentially explains why most judgments entered by U.S. courts never actually get collected. Without some sort of civil authority forcing judgment debtors to pay up, there is very little incentive to cooperate. Then again, that’s why companies like Judgment Collectors exist.
Judgments can take many forms. What a given judgment looks like depends heavily on the type of case and the relief being sought. Spend any time in the civil court system and you learn pretty quickly that judgments can cover just about anything.
