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by shermantanktop 53 days ago
IANAL but I think of a civil suit as a substitute for the injured party extracting justice by less civilized methods. If you wreck my fence, I can come wreck your fence in retaliation. Or I can sue you. The government is only providing the venue for resolving the dispute.

Now in reality there are political and other influences on court behavior. But the government is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant.
2 comments
tsimionescu 53 days ago
This is only part of civil law. Civil law also governs numerous government regulations as well. If you're fined for illegal parking, that happens in a civil court too - but it's still a suit between you and the state. Even in your example of a destroyed fence, the reason you can bring such a suit in court is that there are state or federal laws that I broke by destroying your fence. If such laws didn't exist, a judge would not help you.

What you're thinking more of is contract law - where two parties go before a judge simply to adjudicate a matter that is entirely of their own invention. If we had signed a contract that said I can touch your fence but in touching it I left a hand print on it, I might think the contract allowed me to do so, while you may think that the hand print constitutes wrecking your fence, and we can go before a judge to decide and enforce said decision. The judge then won't look at any state/federal laws, they will look only at the terms of our contract (assuming the contract itself doesn't violate any laws, of course).

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jklinger410 53 days ago
> The government is only providing the venue for resolving the dispute.

The government provides the venue, the decider, the rules of engagement, and enforces the decision. The government stands on the side of the plaintiff, ready to turn the resolution (that the government decided) into the same result as if it were law.

The distinction is nonsense to me.

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triceratops 53 days ago
The judicial branch - which decides - is independent of the executive branch - which enforces.

> The government stands on the side of the plaintiff

The executive stands on the side of whoever the judiciary ruled in favor of. It's an important distinction.

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