When a judge dismisses a lawsuit "without prejudice" can you tell me what that means?

http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/without-prejudice.html

Welcome to Fluther, dutchcat. We usually try to avoid easily google-able questions here, but for the sake of welcoming new people, here ya go! :)

Wikipedia’s article on prejudice in the legal term, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prejudice_(law) states that Thus, in a civil case, dismissal without prejudice is a dismissal that allows for re-filing of the case in the future.

If the case was dismissed with prejudice, the person would not be able to re-file the case.

@Likeradar Well, I am aware that just about anything can be googled to find the answer, but I prefer the human interaction and discussion….PS—I already knew what it meant! ;)

Why did you ask the question if you already had the answer to? Asking a question you already have the answer to might make sense in an opinion based question, but when you are asking for a legal definition it seems you are just wasting peoples valuable time.

What she said. ^^

@Judi Just trying to start a conversation.

You asked for a definition. That’s not conversation starting. Please, please read the Fluther guidelines.

@Likeradar Interesting…I’m seeing things like, “What is a caddywompus,” and “Where did the term ‘smart Alec’” originate…are those different?

@Judi Also, by posting the question someone reading it would learn something they didn’t know before.

One way that they are different is that they are sincere questions. (I think) The person really wants to know the answer. But, I have been gently nudged before when I have asked “word origin” questions that I could have easily looked up on google. I didn’t see the “Smart Alec” question, but that would probably fall into that category as well. Caddywompus, on the other hand COULD be open to interpretation and start a creative conversation.
Posting questions for the sake of imparting your wisdom has historically been frowned upon here. I’m not trying to be mean or condescending, just trying to help you integrate into our community successfully.

There are other communities where asking a question to which you know the answer is actually encouraged. WikiAnswers, for instance, aspires to have all the answers to all the questions, so the objective is to create a question for every possible answer (I know, but there it is) so they will always get Google hits. Some of their community supervisors spend huge amounts of time generating questions for single discrete, searchable units of information such as lists of state birds (one question per state) and every known fact about clams.

That is not the point here. The point here is to seek answers, often somewhat more complex or obscure answers, from people who know the subject and can respond directly with the information you need, especially when it’s not a straightforward, searchable question. It’s also to have an exchange of thoughts and enjoy the interaction. Some questions do involve opinions or polling, and they are welcome when they are framed so as to generate interesting discussions.

So as Judi says, it’s not a matter of any absolute rightness or wrongness. It’s a matter of acculturation to the Fluther community.

dont ask a question you know the answer to! just silly

@Jeruba But…it’s a question that other people may not know the answer to, and ALSO, something they had never thought of. I tell you, if someone had asked that Q on wis.dm, and then I wound up in small claims court (which I did) and the case was dismissed “without prejudice” (which it was, but we lost $450) I would have realized I could have taken further action….because of something I learned before I needed to know about it. It’s just different here…

>It’s just different here…

Yes, @DutchCat, that’s the point. Here we don’t serve up education until someone asks for it.

There are 6.94 trillion questions that people don’t know the answer to. When I see someone post one of the ones that I do know the answer to or can offer a reasonable opinion on, I’ll respond, and I’ll also reply with interest to others’ postings. But I won’t set about posting separate questions for all the pieces of knowledge I have. If I wanted to do that, I’d go to WikiAnswers.

In your case, if, when facing small claims court, you had read up on the process generally, perhaps you’d have encountered information about this judgment and been better prepared.

I did read up on it…and had some help from a lawyer friend, but I didn’t know until the other day what “without prejudice” meant…I don’t know that I’d have done anything differently—I was just glad the crap was over with!—but, oh well.

I ain’t fer sure Dutchie-poo!

@DutchCat ; So what you’re saying is, that you were involved in a lawsuit that was dismissed without prejudice, and whoever was the plaintiff. The Plaintiff has the option to re-file the lawsuit.
Here on fluther, we would probably get the question somewhere before you went to court. You would say “What can I expect when I go to court for “Insert details here.”
Someone in the collective would come back and tell you their experiences, we would all wish you luck and be anxious to hear the results. You would probably come back on the same thread after the case was over and say, “The case was dismissed without prejudice. I learned that this means…...” That way, no one feels like they wasted their time answering a question the answerer already knew the answer to, and you still have an opportunity to share your new found knowledge.

@Judi—this was before wis.dm or fluther…yes, I sure would have touched base with my community!