Plaintiff – Burden of Proof

The Burden of Proof

In any trial case, the party that is seeking damages or a conviction must be able to satisfy the burden of proof with his or her evidence to prove that what he or she says happened actually did happen. Depending on the type of case, there are varying levels of burdens that must be met. In civil cases, the burden is generally by a preponderance of the evidence.

The burden of proof is commonly confused with the burden of persuasion. The burden of persuasion actually has very little to do with a case but it must be satisfied before a case can go to a jury. To satisfy the burden of persuasion, the party that will eventually have the burden of proof (generally the plaintiff in cases of civil litigation) must be able to convince the judge that with all of the evidence that has been presented, a reasonable jury could possibly ever find that there was an issue and the plaintiff should recover. In effect, one must persuade the judge that there is an issue before one can prove to the jury that the issue should be decided one way or another.

Once the burden of persuasion has been met, the judge allows the case to go to a jury. The evidence of the opposing side may be able to present defenses or other bits of evidence. Once the closing arguments have been heard, the jury gets to hear what the law in question is and is then asked to decide the case.

Plaintiff Objectives to Win a Case

In order for a plaintiff to win a civil case, the plaintiff must convince the jury, by a preponderance of the evidence, that what he or she says is true. This basically comes down to convincing the jury that the majority of the evidence says that what the plaintiff says happened did happen. The preponderance of the evidence standard is seen as convincing the jury that they are 51% certain or so that the plaintiff is right. If they think the plaintiff is not right, they only need to find that the defense’s argument is 51% correct or true and the plaintiff loses.

The criminal court system uses a much higher burden of proof than the civil system. The criminal courts require that juries find that a defendant is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. This, in numeric terms, is seen as being about 99% certain that the defendant did what he or she was accused of doing.

The Milwaukee car accident attorneys of Habush Habush & Rottier are available to answer any questions a person may have regarding a personal injury situation.

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