Dynamite dynamite dynamite. This is the lawyer, James, the dynamite audio program. It is the absolute best audio content by New York Business Attorney in both transactional and litigation practice areas. And it is helpful for all industries. Now here’s today’s episode. One more thing. Before we get started, you can reach me online by visiting my website, the lawyer james.com. The lawyer james.com. The lawyer james.com. You can call me at (212) 500-1891. That’s the office (212) 500-1891 (212) 500-1891. You can contact me by email at James at the lawyer. james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com. james@thelawyerjames.com or by text message at (917) 783-3153. Text message (917) 783-3153 that’s (917) 783-3153.
All right, today, I’m going to be talking about the, what happens after the complaint is filed. But before I get into that, I wanted to talk a little bit more about what the complaint contains and what the complaint does. It’s called a notice pleading. So it doesn’t have to get into these crazy details, but it can, depending on how you want to tell the story and how complicated the story is. You know, I’ve seen complaints that are one page long, and I’ve seen complaints that are tens 60, 70, 80 pages long. So it really depends on the type of case that you’re filing and the relief you’re seeking and how complicated the story is and the message that you want to send to the other side. The more, the bigger, more robust the complaint is the more effort you’ve obviously put into it. The more seriously you take it, the larger, um, the larger, the more there is at stake.
And that’s not always the case because I’ve also seen very artfully yet, uh, very short artfully drafted yet very short complaints New York Business Attorney. So it’s really, it’s more of an art form rather than a science. And it comes in all different sorts of sizes and shapes the, the, the, the thing to focus on though, and the question I ask is what is going to be the most effective complaint in this circumstance? You know, you can do some research to figure out on your own, or, you know, you can talk to an attorney. You can call me to do it. If you want two one two zero zero +1 891-212-5001 eight nine month. And the complaint a notice pleading again, is to show at least the bare bones for the other side, to understand what the claim that you have, uh, that you have and the damages that you have and what you’re seeking.
And so that’s another very important thing to note is what relief, what are you asking the court to do? Are you asking the court to award money damages? Are you asking the court to compel the conveyance of a property New York Business Attorney? For instance, if you’re in contract to buy a house and you want to buy the house, and that’s a one of a kind house on that, one of a kind block, there’s only that one space in the whole entire world, and there’s nothing else like it. It’s on the corner of, uh, you name the intersection. There’s only one, one intersection in that state, in that location that has that name, that has that piece of property. You can compel, you can, you can ask a court to compel the sale of that property based on, based on the contract. Um, so that, so, so far we’ve done over money damages. We’ve gone over, uh, it’s called specific performance. When you, when you seek, um, the performance by one party of their obligations that they agreed to in the contract. Okay. So we have money damages, we have specific foremans, and then there’s also, uh, it’s called injunctive relief. And injunctive relief is where you’re asking the court to let’s say, stop something from happening. What’s a good example of this. You know, let’s say that there’s,
Um, you know, Y had
A client one time who their bank account stuff frozen,
And
It was a significant amount of money, some significant amount of money that was frozen New York Business Attorney. They, they, they didn’t have access to the amount that was frozen. And by the way, it was in inner mountain more than, than the judgment. And so what I did was I went into court and I applied for a temporary restraining order. And I received a what the temporary restraining order did was it prevented the judgment from being enforced. So, so a court and a complaint can also ask for that type of relief in the context of a, of a permanent injunction is what it’s called. And, you know, you can ask for a preliminary injunction as well, while the, while the court, um, while the, while the, the discovery, while the case progresses, you want a temporary sort of level of relief, but you have to meet certain tests to get, uh, to get a preliminary injunction now.
Uh, so we’ve got three types of damages. So far money damages. We’ve gone over, we’ve gone over specifically four months, we’ve gone over injunctive relief. And then there’s this thing called declaratory relief as well. And a lot of insurance companies use these cases or that that form of relief, although other parties can use it as well. And declaratory relief is, you know, we want a finding or declaration from the court that says, this is what the contract says. This is what the party’s rights are, or based on what the contract says. This is what the party’s rights are. It’s basically a blessing by the court of the interpretation. And it says, uh, it’s a declaration by the court of what the contract says, if there is a dispute about it. And so that’s called a declaratory relief. Now, after the complaint is filed, unless they said, this is a breach of contract based, there’s no, um, there’s no injunctive relief.
There’s no preliminary injunctive relief. There’s no temporary restraining order. There’s no nothing like that associated with that relief. So it’s just the plain vanilla breach of contract case. So once the complaint is filed and the defendant, once the complaint is filed, it gets served on the defendant. Once the defendant receives that the defendant has 20 days of served personally, 30 days of served out of state or in a manner that’s, other than personal now service can be, you know, in-person, it’s, it’s the search process server walks up and says, okay, here are you so-and-so? Yep. Here it is. You get served. And that’s the more detailed I can go into that, but that’s basically what service processes, or it can be left with a person of suitable Asia discretion, let’s say at somebody’s home. And, um, and then mailed. So that’s not personal service. So in that case, it would be 30 days.
And it would also be 30 days is if the person, the defendant is out of state. So that would be 30 days. It’s only in-person service that is in New York Business Attorney or in, in if we’re, if the case is filed in New York, in New York, that’s 20 days, the person is personally served in the year. Okay. So what happens next? Well, the defendant either the, typically the way that it’s the way that it’s regarded is the, uh, plaintiff, excuse me, the defendant can either answer the complaint or otherwise respond and to otherwise respond to the complaint. Okay. So the plaintiff answers or otherwise respond to the plate. And other response typically is a motion to dismiss, uh, or some other type of emotion. So the pre answer motion to dismiss. So when a defendant gets sued and it wants to file a motion to dismiss it, cam, and until the court decides the motion to dismiss an answer does not need to be filed.
That’s why it’s called a pre answer motion to dismiss. So, and there are a lot of different reasons to file a motion to dismiss. For instance, it’s failure to state a claim, uh, for which it’s a failure to state a claim for which available for which relief is available, right. That’s one third. Is there a claim that means New York Business Attorney, remember, uh, in the previous podcast site, I told you the elements, for instance, if the complaint is missing the elements of the claim, then that’s a basis for a motion to dismiss. Another basis of a motion to dismiss is, um, you have a defense, a complete defense that’s founded on documentary evidence that an example of that, uh, could be, for instance, if you get sued on a breach contract, fam, you’ve already settled on breach of contract claim on the same breach contract claim that they have here, then you would introduce your settlement agreement.
And as a matter of law, which should also contain a release, and then you have a complete defense that based upon documented Terry evidence. So then the defendant would be able to, you know, get rid of that claim full stop. Really, really no question. Uh, and then that happens if the case gets dismissed and there’s no answer. Um, but if there that the case doesn’t get dismissed, or if the defendant does not want to, or does not have a viable grounds for motion to dismiss, then the defendant files an answer New York Business Attorney. And basically an answer just says, uh, either admits or denies the allegations that are contained in the complaint. And once, uh, an answer is filed, that takes us to the, to the next topic. Um, from typically a discovery, you have a preliminary conference with the court and you agree on a discovery schedule, but the answer can also contain counterclaims, which means if they wronged you, that you can also Sue them for four causes of action. All right. So that wraps up, uh, this next topic. Um, uh, what happens after the complaint is filed? You can reach me
Online by visiting my website, the lawyer, james.com, the lawyer james.com. The lawyer james.com. You can call me at (212) 500-1891. That’s the office (212) 500-1891 (212) 500-1891. You can contact me by email at James at the lawyer, james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com. James at the lawyer, james.com or by text message at (917) 783-3153. Text message. (917) 783-3153 that’s (917) 783-3153.