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Hi everyone and welcome back to America under the Microscope.欢迎你又回到闲话美国.

Hello James.

Hi, Lulu. Hi everyone.

You know I'm a huge fan of courtroom drama and crime drama, right?

Yes. Law and Order.

Yes, years of watching Law and Order and the likes, one thing strikes me as just like a habit of Americans, it's just like anytime they are not happy with someone or something, they say I'm going to sue. 我要起诉。

That's so true.

Is that really true? I always thought that has to be an exaggeration.

Well, the exaggerated thing is I'm going to sue you? Yes. They don't really say that but Americans do love lawsuits, and we do sue pretty freely.

So let's talk about lawsuits and this whole idea of lawsuits everywhere. People are so willing to sue others. First of all, who can you sue?

I have a great answer for that. Anybody.

So anybody can sue anybody?

Yeah, anybody can sue anybody. You can sue your neighbor; you can sue a business; you can even sue the president of the United States.

But, the truth is most lawsuits that people file with the courts have what's called “no merit”.

What does that mean? No merit?

Basically the lawsuit has no real justification to exist.

就是你提出了诉讼实际上是没有什么道理的。So it's not supported by the court.

Right. So I could file a lawsuit against you Lulu, for saying, breathing on me.

And the judge will look at them and say no, that's stupid, and throw it out. And that's what happens to most lawsuits.

So technically I can say I want to sue you, James, for wearing this shirt.

Yeah.

But nobody’s gonna really care because the judge will think this is stupid.

Right. Now you will have to get a lawyer for this, and you will still be able to find a lawyer to help fill up the documents to do this because the lawyers are going to get paid whether that suit is successful or not. Although many lawyers will not take that because it's bad for image. They don't want to be the lawyers like I take anything. They want to win lawsuits because winning lawsuits is better than any kind of recommendation, than anything else.

But you can still find perhaps bottom of the barrel lawyers. 那种已经活不下去的律师，they will take anything probably.

It’s all good men.

So you find a lawyer, I suppose you are going to fill out the documents.

Yes, you will get a lawyer to fill out the court documents and all that stuff will be submitted to the court. The judge the court will review it if the lawsuit has an actual legitimate claim, something that should be looked up further. The court will allow it to proceed so they'll then get into things like investigation, building their case.

Yeah, but hang on a minute. Whether it's worth investigating or worth proceeding, that is purely the decision of the judge.

Yeah, and the judge is going to base it off of the things like whether they're suing of some kind of actual illegal action or just suing for things that for suing sake, basically, yes.

所以你提出的诉讼首先是由法官他来决定说有没有理由，如果有理由才会让你继续，没有理由他就直接给你就打回去了。

But why do people sue if they know they are suing for ridiculous reasons.

Oh there're lots of reasons. Most common, it's just personal disputes. You're having a disagreement with somebody over something.

And they're like, I will sue.

Yeah, So like damages but not criminal.

Basically, it's another form of just arguments, just take it to the next level.

Said probably the most well-known lawsuits are always against companies.

Because companies have money.

Companies have money and sometimes companies do something wrong like selling a fake product or causing damages to people and things like that.

So technically, if I go to a restaurant and then I find a hair or a bug in my soup, I can sue.

Probably not, well you can, but that's most likely not going to go anywhere as it's something that happens too commonly.

What if it's food poisoning？

That probably can go somewhere, especially if there's series of food poisonings, and we can also sue the government which you see in American news from time to time. That's how some laws get changed.

Wow, so there is an actual chance of winning then, sueing the government.

It's happened before.

Ok. So what happens that you said most of the lawsuits they're not gonna go anywhere.

They just get thrown out because they don't have any real legs to stand on.

What about the lawsuits that make a little bit more sense like you said food poisoning.

Well, most never actually go to court, it goes to what's called arbitration.

就是仲裁, we have that as well.

Most just going to arbitration, so basically they all go into a meeting room, they do have a court official there.

They talk nicely

Because everything is recorded, they do need someone to officiate, but it's basically going to be party A and lawyers, party B and lawyers, and discussing and negotiating behind closed doors to come to some agreement.

Very civilized discussion

It may not be civilised，but the decision is legally binding.

嗯，可能会有仲裁程序。And then they could reach something as like an out of court agreement.

That would be an arbitration. It is an out of court agreement.

So it's the same就是庭外的一些和解。

Yeah it's the same, but it's still legally binding.

But what happens if it actually goes to court.

So, believe it or not, most people want to avoid this because if it goes to court, it's in front of a jury. It's not the judge who decides this. It's going to be the jury.

嗯，陪审团，12 people?

It depends honestly from jurisdiction. And you can't always judge how that's going to go.

Because they are just ordinary people.

Yeah, and a trial, even a civil trial, which is called civil trials are expensive.

This is the thing, who pays the fees, all of these expenses?

You will pay for your own lawyer.

The person filing the lawsuit is going to be paying the bulk of it, you don't have to pay for the judge or anything like that. You have to pay the filing fees for the court which are pretty standard fees.

But most expensive is your lawyer.

Your lawyer and any investigators you hire to get evidence.

I guess unless you are expecting a large sum of compensation or damages,就除非你后面有很多的赔偿金可以拿到, otherwise I don't suppose people will really sue because they could just end up paying a lot for nothing.

Yeah, we actually have a term for this. We have some people that are what we call, like sue proof or lawsuit proof, meaning that even if you win the lawsuit, they don't have any money to give you.

So if you want to sue for damages, I think it's very important in any country to find out the person you are suing, that they actually have the financial ability to pay you back, otherwise they can just say I don't have the money you can throw me in jail.

Except you cannot be thrown in jail because it's not a criminal case. It's just a civil case, so it is wholly money. If you have no money, well...

There’s nothing you can really do.

You just wasted a lot of money on lawyers.

Haha.

I'm poor.

So that's the basics.

That's the basics.

In the advanced episode, we are going to get more into the depth in discussions. But before we end the basic episode let me ask - are these courtroom dramas, are they also very popular in the States?

Yes, we have several, but the most famous one is Judge Judy.

I've heard that a lot. I've never really watched it.

This is an older retired judge and she has a TV show where she has people coming in for minor lawsuits, this, we're talking $500 or less. They agree to arbitration by judge Judy. But then they basically act out a courtroom scene on TV.

So the real thing is done before the show.

Yeah everything is decided before the show.

The show is just based on the real cases.

If you choose this, you will be on TV. So people do this to be on TV and to get things up to $500.

And I guess the retired judge agreed to be on this show because she gets paid a lot.

She makes $60 million a year.

She is the highest paid TV personality in America.

Just for dealing with these lawsuits that are so minor, it's $500. Wow, if you guys have ever watched judge Judy, I have never watched it, but I heard it referenced so often in TV shows.

It's a big part of American pop culture.

Maybe I'll check that out.

So we're gonna end our basic episode here. Those of you who are listening to the show，if you are like me，a lover of courtroom drama, leave us a comment of what is your favorite courtroom drama show and have you ever watched judge Judy？What do you think about the topic？Let us know. Thank you，James，for coming to the studio, we'll see you next time.

Bye everyone.