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party

law

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procedural law

  • Justinian I
    In procedural law: Parties

    Every civil lawsuit involves at least two parties—a plaintiff making a claim and a defendant resisting it. Beyond this basic requirement, legal systems differ slightly in their approach to the question of whether other parties may or must be joined.

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  • Justinian I
    In procedural law: Types of proof proceedings

    Parties are not considered witnesses in some civil-law systems, on the grounds that a party’s testimony in his own favour is likely to be discounted and that it is on the other hand harsh to ask him to testify against himself. Even in such regimes,…

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  • In evidence: Party testimony

    Oral testimony by the parties in civil proceedings was introduced in Austria in 1895. Norway followed suit in 1915, Denmark in 1919, Germany in 1933, and Sweden in 1948. Party testimony is generally heard in the same way as the evidence of witnesses,…

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settlement, in law, a compromise or agreement between litigants to settle the matters in dispute between them in order to dispose of and conclude their litigation. Generally, as a result of the settlement, prosecution of the action is withdrawn or dismissed without any judgment being entered (see nolle prosequi). In such cases, the settlement itself, as a binding contract between parties, prevents renewal of the litigation. But the parties may, and often do, incorporate the terms of the settlement into a consent judgment, recorded by the court. Such a judgment may afford the same protection against a reopening of the dispute in litigation as is provided by a court judgment at the conclusion of a fully litigated case.

Settlements commonly provide for, or are construed to allow, either party to enforce their terms or to ignore them and reopen the underlying dispute if the other party fails to fulfill the terms and conditions agreed upon. Because, in modern litigation, most suits brought are either withdrawn or settled, the settlement constitutes an important feature of the process.

The term settlement is also applied to a disposition of property to be held in trust.