Legal Research and Writing

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Firstly in this case, the affected parties will have to identify if this is a criminal or civil case. For instance, this case does not involve an offence with public interest, but involves disputes between individual parties, therefore it is deemed as a civil case. Under the civil law of contract law and tort law the affected patrons of the restaurant may claim for compensations or sue for damages for harm, loss or injury to the affected parties (SingaporeLegalAdvice.com, 2015).

Letter of demand

After identifying the dispute as a civil litigation, the plaintiff has to engage a lawyer to act on his or her behalf. But before commencing the legal proceedings, it is advisable the lawyer sent out a letter of demand to notify the opposing party about the plaintiff’s demands or risk a civil lawsuit. The letter of demand will contain the payment or action demanded, why the payment or action has been brought up, ways for the payment or action to be fulfilled and a time boundary given to fulfil it. The main purpose for the letter of demand is to settle the dispute without litigation in order to save time and money. If the demands are not acceptable for the opposing party, the plaintiff’s lawyer may commence legal proceedings (SingaporeLegalAdvice.com, 2015).

Depending on the claim amount the action will be commenced in the appropriate Jurisdiction of the courts, example Magistrate’s Court, District Court and High Court. There are two ways to commence civil action, Originating Summons and Writ of Summons.

Originating Summons

An originating summons is used to commence legal proceedings on cases where people agree on the facts, it is faster, cheaper and simpler than writ of summons, but need a judge to decide on the meaning of law, contract or other document. The summons should contain necessary particulars to identify the cause of action in relevant to the claim. In cases where the court finds that there are considerable dispute over facts the case may proceed as a writ (Clic.org.hk, 2015).

Writ of Summons

A Writ of summons is used to commence legal proceedings by plaintiff who has a claim against the defendant who denies the claim and orders them to come to court. This summons is mostly used in contract and tort cases and majority of civil cases commences by a writ of summons. In order to commence a writ action and deem it as issued the plaintiff has to file the writ in the Supreme Court Registry. The writ has to be signed and sealed by the Registrar and it is valid for 6 months. Once the writ is served personally to the restaurant’s representative, he or she has 8 days to respond by submitting a Memorandum of Appearance with the court to show his or her intention to defend the proceeding. It is also advisable to endorse a statement of claim with the writ, because by not doing such, the statement of claim must be endorsed within 14 days after the opposing party enters an appearance and may make a counterclaim in the same action as the plaintiff within 22 days (Singaporelaw.sg, 2015).

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