 The law courts that deal with recovery of damages are generally empowered to settle private disputes between citizens. In our current political and legal environment, this is a service to private citizens and only secondarily to the larger public. It provides a means for those who use the system to have their disputes brought before a judge in terms of injuries suffered by one party and acts of another that caused that injury. Where the concept is simple enough and the public purpose obvious, there is nothing obvious about the value this has to those who are in dispute. The first note is that it addresses a very narrow set of challenges, disputes where there are provable injuries. It does not address other disputes that might lead to breaches of public tranquility. The first warning sign on the general approach is that using the court creates legal damages. It is not a benefit for those who use the system but an additional cost and burden. That is troubling as it denies this as a service to those who are in dispute. It claims a public purpose that is harmful to the public that comes within the legal jurisdiction of the court. In that it is much like criminal law but administering punishment to those who might disturb the peace because of their private quarrels. That would indeed be a valid surface under the sovereignty concept of English law. It is less clearly so in a government that exists only to serve the interests of a sovereign citizenry. With this admonition, we can look to the processes of tort law as are in effect in fulfillment of American law. We have a tort law approach that is economic in purpose. It supports and maintains a type of legal practitioner business through the way the courts approach tort law. It uses the tort as a special arm of government that sees to the employment of tort law specialists. Tort lawyers are an effective necessity for making use of tort law. What we have is not any part of common law. It is not law for the common citizen in this. It is not properly within the common law foundation. It thrives on a special knowledge of legislation and legal principles that are not commonly understood. It is indicative that such laws and principles are not derived by leaders who represent the people. Laws that common citizens do not understand are not representative of them. Laws and principles created by actions of the court are through those who are not even elected to be their officers. So the first action of any citizen who has suffered a significant loss due to the acts of others is to seek a combination from private insurance companies. The unfortunate truth is that these private businesses often give better public service than the courts that hear the actions in tort law. If accommodation cannot be made or the damages greatly exceed the available insurance, then there is a secondary approach through review of the action with a tort lawyer. Again, the accommodation is more likely through private attorney actions than through a citizen accessing and supposedly using public courts. For the attorney, it is a business decision whether there can be sufficient recovery from available insurance or the wealth of the one who has caused the injury to pay for his legal services. There is a question of whether that injury can be proven along with proving that the acts of the other party actually and materially caused the injury. Lacking this, the injured party can still hire the attorney as a separate financial and service arrangement, noting that the action is going to be expensive and the outcome is not so sure that the attorney is willing to proceed on contingency of winning. For damage recovery actions, the next step is often contacting the party who has caused the damage, suggesting that he be represented by a tort lawyer and that they need to see if the matter can be resolved without involving the courts. Another alternative is for the attorney to file papers with the court to bring the matter to official court notice, which is an option that can further encourage the accused tort feeser to get an attorney and come to the table for negotiating a settlement. It is not at all uncommon for the accused to contact his or her insurance carriers to raise the potential for their joint interests so that he or she can gain a tort lawyer support from that source. This can greatly reduce personal costs for the one or both parties. The purpose of the first contact is not to heighten or better to find the dispute, but to see if the matter is subject to resolution through efforts of special attorneys. Encouraging use of the damaging court process as a public service is the last thing most attorneys will try. It is far easier and less expensive to use the court actions as a threat instead of any part of a solution. If the threat of going to court is sufficient to get the parties to agree, the action is settled out of court. If the court has been notified, then the court is again contacted with the resolution so that they can clear its files and cancel any action that has been set. If accommodation cannot be reached, then the process of legal adjudication is activated and the prescribed actions are used to establish the dispute for resolution in court. It is often sufficient with this step to so define the dispute that resolution becomes relatively certain and the parties are again urged to resolve their dispute without further court involvement. As noted in the assigned reading, it is only those actions where potential findings of legal damages far exceeds the threat of court expenses in time and effort and where reasonable accommodations have been rejected that the action gets into open court before the judge. The involvement of the insurance carrier attorney may well encourage the court action as the costs of any loss get spread over many customers to the insurance company and it can be beneficial to test out some new approach or way of limiting damages that is potentially beneficial to the business of insurance even if it only puts a moderate time and expense on the represented party. The action of a court to receive the evidence of the cause and deliberate on whether the evidence proves the loss of legal responsibility of the accused is undertaken if proven the judgment will address damages to be assessed along with reasonable attorney expenses. If unproven, the expenses may be assessed to the complaining party or absorbed by the court as its determination that the cause is properly brought before the court for adjudication that is support for the use of attorneys which is part of the existing legal system. The final act of a successful suit is usually for the tort fees or to arrange payment of judgment. If this is not done, the judgment may be taken to the appropriate police authority to seize upon the property to be sold at public auction and satisfaction of the debt. Finally the attorney accepts payment on behalf of his or her client and divides out and makes delivery of payment to the client. This closes out their contractual arrangement. Again, avoidance of government official involvement is highly preferred due to the expenses in time and services. Also, the service is not stable in the sense of operating rules of the court. It is, for example, currently vogue to start with the concept that one injured should be granted relief of some type. The court reacts with an attempt to find damages to redress, even if it is a bit of a stretch to find them. This is neither right or wrong in any absolute sense, but rather acts as a statement of the lack of definition in what our law courts should be doing in pursuit of justice and domestic tranquility. Being favorable to the complaint is technically no different than being favorable to the defense. It is the court favoring one side or the other in a dispute because that is the general leaning of the law that is in vogue. The courts do try their best to satisfy the public sense of fairness and justice, no matter what that sense might be. We also look at the concept of legislation of tort. Where does the private quarrel become a matter of public concern, such that there is some need for legislation to define a cause of tort action or to set limits on damages and recoveries? It is not a question that is easy answered, especially not on a political arena. If there is some way for the public law to be used to minimize the cost of legal actions while still assuring a high level of justice or services, that can be explored. Can government engage in a public insurance or citizens as though setting recoveries for common causes, so that only special case situations have to be addressed in court to find justice? Will this promote justice or injustice? We now have a punitive system where it does serve its basic purpose of providing citizens a mean to address more serious causes of damage in a nonviolent way. It provides a safety valve that promotes people coming to resolution without involving the courts, and that is also a value. It primarily fails for not being a service that gets delivered to the public. On the performance side, we have just two metrics. The first is what gets accomplished and delivered to the public customer. The second is what it costs the public to gain what the public receives. Of immediate note for performance, the required cost of attorney representation is part of the system cost, not some separate and external business. As it is required to achieve justice, it is a direct cost. The public service is in terms of having a nonviolent means for sovereign citizens to resolve their differences through damage recovery. This of course is not a public service. It is a service for those who have significant disagreements that are based on provable injuries and acts of cause for injuries. The public service is actually the handling of the more serious injuries that sovereign citizens receive at the hands of private parties. The injuries suffered from government actions are addressed in accord with legislation, but are otherwise denied. This does provide a level of resolution, though generally not one that would be called just. It is also being paid for by the parties more of a private service to the injured parties than any true public service. If you need court action or cannot avoid it, the judicial system is in place to seek monetary restitution. This is your legal system for handling torts through damages. It is not the only way that courts deal with personal wrongs, or we would have to seek to replace it with something that serves more equitably. It is backed up with an alternative law tort system that has traditionally been called courts of equity. The second side of tort law will be the subject of our next lesson.