Judicial economy or procedural economy is the principle that the limited resources of the legal system or a given court should be conserved by the refusal to decide one or more claims raised in a case. For example, the

plaintiff A plaintiff ( Π in legal shorthand) is the party who initiates a lawsuit (also known as an ''action'') before a court. By doing so, the plaintiff seeks a legal remedy. If this search is successful, the court will issue judgment in favor of the p ...

may claim that the

defendant In court proceedings, a defendant is a person or object who is the party either accused of committing a crime in criminal prosecution or against whom some type of civil relief is being sought in a civil case. Terminology varies from one jurisdic ...

's actions violated three distinct laws. Having found for the plaintiff for a violation of the first law, the court then has the discretion to exercise judicial economy and refuse to make a decision on the remaining two claims, on the grounds that the finding of one violation should be sufficient to satisfy the plaintiff.

Threshold issue in a given case

In the presence of a threshold issue that will ultimately decide a case, a court may, depending on the degree of prejudice to the litigants rights, elect to hear that issue rather than proceeding with a full-blown trial.

Class action lawsuits

Class action lawsuit A class action, also known as a class-action lawsuit, class suit, or representative action, is a type of lawsuit where one of the parties is a group of people who are represented collectively by a member or members of that group. The class actio ...

s are another example of judicial economy in action, as they are often tried as a single case, yet involve many cases with similar facts. Rather than trying each case individually, which would unduly burden the judicial system, the cases can be consolidated into a class action.

Notes

External links

Judicial Economy Law and Legal DefinitionClass Action Lawsuits: A Legal Overview for the 115th Congress

Congressional Research Service The Congressional Research Service (CRS) is a public policy research institute of the United States Congress. Operating within the Library of Congress, it works primarily and directly for members of Congress and their committees and staff on a c ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Judicial Economy Legal procedure Law and economics Economy by field