What Is a Summary Judgment and a Default Judgment?

A summary judgment is something that comes up, once your case has been filed in litigation. You filed a complaint and you have a lawsuit. And and usually in our in automobile accidents, the defendant files a summary judgment or in a slip and fall accident, and it is bringing it in front of the a question of law in front of the judge. A lot of times, most automobile accidents, cases are in front of a jury, a twelve person jury, decided by your peers.

But in rare circumstances, a defendant will file a summary judgment motion that is basically bringing a question in front of the judge that says that they don’t believe any reasonable juror could make its decision, decide with you. So we are a lot of times defending summary judgment motions. And if you defeat a summary judgment motion and the judge does find that reasonable jurors could agree with the plaintiff on a case, then it moves forward to that jury trial. And a lot of times, if you do survive a summary judgment, motion, that brings the defendant to the table and a lot of times settlement negotiations begin after that.

A default judgment is a specific kind of judgment with when you file a lawsuit against the defendant and the defendant has thirty days to answer the complaint. If the defendant does not answer the complaint with they don’t have insurance and an attorney has not been hired to represent them, then at that point, you file for a default judgment. And that means that liability is admitted, causation is admitted, and the only thing left is determine your amount of damages. So you have that point, you have a judgment against the defendant.

So then, usually, we will go in front of a judge, and the judge will make the determination based on your medical bills, your lost wages, of what your damages are. But you don’t have to have a full on trial anymore about what happened. It just becomes a hearing based upon your damages.