Fines are punishment for breaking the law, and are paid to the state. Civil lawsuits seek relief by those impacted by the defendant, and can range from monetary relief to injunction compelling the defendant to take or cease certain actions.
Outside of felonies, civil litigation is much worse than criminal. When the government goes after you criminally, they can fine you, jail you, or kill you, and that’s about it. When they go after you in civil court, they can do much worse.
I work in municipal government, and we frequently do both. For example, if you build a gate across a public street (happens more than you would think), we can’t just send you to criminal court, because once they’ve fined you, the case is over and there’s still a gate blocking the road.
Instead we send you to criminal court for the fine AND take you to civil court to get an injunction requiring you to remove the gate (or to put a lein on your property if we had it removed ourselves and you haven’t paid us back).
a fine of $92M and it isnt a class action suit. i dont even get my $1.08 in the mail for being violated.
Fines are criminal. Lawsuits are civil.
Fines are punishment for breaking the law, and are paid to the state. Civil lawsuits seek relief by those impacted by the defendant, and can range from monetary relief to injunction compelling the defendant to take or cease certain actions.
Outside of felonies, civil litigation is much worse than criminal. When the government goes after you criminally, they can fine you, jail you, or kill you, and that’s about it. When they go after you in civil court, they can do much worse.
I work in municipal government, and we frequently do both. For example, if you build a gate across a public street (happens more than you would think), we can’t just send you to criminal court, because once they’ve fined you, the case is over and there’s still a gate blocking the road.
Instead we send you to criminal court for the fine AND take you to civil court to get an injunction requiring you to remove the gate (or to put a lein on your property if we had it removed ourselves and you haven’t paid us back).
got it. so we are still being violated. D :