What reason would a judge have for dismissing a case "without prejudice"?
“Without prejudice” man that’s a hard word to spell! means you can take it back to court if you want.
When we owned the mower shop we were sued by a moron who demanded we rebuild the engine of his total POS Murray rider for $100. It’s a minimum of a $500 job, and he knew it. He just dragged it over with his pick up truck and dropped it off. It sat for 3 years…and then he sued us. Long story short, we finally agreed to settle out of court (in the hallway of the courthouse) for $400 just to make him go away. Then he got SERIOUSLY unreasonable (basically demanded an entirely new mower..he’d had lots and lots and lots of experience in small claims court. Had filed over 100 suits over the previous 5 years….) and we said “To hell with this. We’ll go to court!” And we did, about 10 minutes later.
I think that original out-of-court agreement worked against us because the judge ended up finding against us for $400 (I think the Consumer Protection Act was rolling around in his mind too…but the act isn’t designed for consumers to be allowed to sue businesses helter skelter, but he wanted to be safe….) I could tell he didn’t want to—the guy was a serious ass. But he did, and ruled “without prejudice” copy and paste!
Do you think he wanted us to bring it back to court?
Anyway, Judge Judy just made a ruling “without prejudice”...what is going through a judge’s mind when they do that?
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“When a lawsuit is dismissed, the court may enter a judgment against the plaintiff with or without prejudice. When a lawsuit is dismissed without prejudice, it signifies that none of the rights or privileges of the individual involved are considered to be lost or waived. The same holds true when an admission is made or when a motion is denied without prejudice.
The inclusion of the term without prejudice in a judgment of dismissal ordinarily indicates the absence of a decision on the merits and leaves the parties free to litigate the matter in a subsequent action, as though the dismissed action had not been started. Therefore, a dismissal without prejudice makes it unnecessary for the court in which the subsequent action is brought to determine whether that action is based on the same cause as the original action, or whether the identical parties are involved in the two actions.”
Legal Dictionary
I know what it means. From the question I wrote “Without prejudice” means you can take it back to court if you want.” I just wonder what reasons a judge would have for doing it. Are they hoping another judge could find reason for coming up with a different ruling?
It means that the judge did not find any cause for prejudice.
And that means…what? Why would a judge find cause for prejudice? Prejudice about what?
I got it. Break down the word “prejudice,” and you have “pre-judge.” It means, I think, that the judge made a ruling, for whatever reason, but didn’t “judge” the right or the wrong of the situation….so it can go back to court so someone else can determine the rightness or wrongness of the complaints.
When I evict someone and it goes to court, the judge asks us to go out in the hall and work things out. Sometimes we agree that we will dismiss the case if they relinquish the apartment by a certain date. We always agree to do this without prejudice, in case they don’t comply with the agreement. We usually agree that if they are not out, they will owe all back rent plus attorneys fees. We will have to take it back to court to get the judgement if they don’t comply. Lucky for me, in 25 years, everyone had moved when agreed.
Well, in my case, can you guess why the judge would dismiss it that way? Did he WANT us to take it back to court? Maybe with a counter suit for 4 years of STORAGE fees or something? I know he was on our side…
The lawsuit wasn’t so stupid that the judge thought it should be thrown out forever, just that there was a defect in this particular instance of the lawsuit. For instance, the fact that you settled is a pretty big defect.
Dismissing without prejudice doesn’t mean that a judge wants you to do anything.
I didn’t know that at the time @Dominic. It was a “shut up and go away,” settlement. We had a public attorney kind of coaching us in the hall way, and he was basically saying if we took it to the judge we could lose our shirts because of the Consumer Protection Act (there should be a similar act that protects small businesses from vultures like the guy who sued us.) So we threw $400 out. The rest is history.
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