6 ms·

Indeed. There's much more symmetry outside of the criminal law. Not sure if applicable to the US, but in my home country you can sue people if you want money fr

Indeed. There's much more symmetry outside of the criminal law. Not sure if applicable to the US, but in my home country you can sue people if you want money from them (as one would expect), but you can also sue "to determine whether a payment is needed", which means you initiate a lawsuit that can result in you paying the money. This may make sense if you deny the claim and are wealthy (i.e. you could pay up) and want to speed up clearing the air. Otherwise the claimant can wait a few years and use the court approved interest rate (high) to hit you over the head a few years down the line.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> Not sure if applicable to the US, but in my home country you can sue people if you want money from them (as one would expect), but you can also sue "to determine whether a payment is needed", which means you initiate a lawsuit that can result in you paying the money. In the US this would be a suit for declaratort judgement in which formally you asked the court to declare you did not owe money, but functionally it seems generally similar.