The Public Ordering of Private Relations: Part One: Initiating Civil Cases in Urban Trial Courts

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Abstract
People and organizations make demands on the civil courts to settle their disputes, enforce the performance of obligations, and direct the redistribution of resources. Although the potential number of users of civil court proceedings would seem to be as numerous as individuals and organizations in a society, only some individuals and some groups use the civil courts. Furthermore, from the entire catalogue of remedies provided by law, users differentially present matters for litigation. Not all types of legal actions are demanded. Nor are the most frequent plaintiffs the most frequent defendants; some litigants predominate as plaintiffs, while others appear most often as defendants. Because of this nonrandom appearance of litigants and subjects of litigation, civil courts of first instance are daily exposed to claims of some, but not all of the people. The object of this paper is to locate and describe the principal users of the civil court system and the matters these users want adjudicated.

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