Speaker 1: I want to draw a really important distinction between civil and criminal law. This is one of the foundational concepts that you need to know. We have the criminal court system. It is completely separate from the civil court system, which is where our business cases happen. Now, it gets confusing because sometimes the two overlap, that you'll have a case that happens in criminal court and then it's also brought in civil court. First of all, a bit of nomenclature. When we talk criminal, we talk about guilt. So if someone is found guilty of a criminal case, they're guilty. In civil court, they are liable. So if we're ever talking about a business case, no one can ever be guilty of a business lawsuit. They are always liable. It's liability. So criminal, guilt, civil, liable. I always want to try to hammer this and hammer this because on tests, at the end of the semester, I still see people who are writing that in a business case, that they're found guilty. And this is really a fundamental term that I want you to know. Another fundamental concept between, distinction between these two is what kind of evidence is necessary to get guilt or liability. In criminal cases, guilt is found when evidence is clear beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a tough standard to meet. It's a high standard. And we want it to be high because we want to be nearly certain that someone is guilty before we're willing to take away their life or their liberty. So how much is beyond a reasonable doubt? Well, you can't put a number on it per se, but approximately, let's say 95%. A jury needs to be 95% certain that someone committed the crime in order to convict. If you are even 6% uncertain, you have to acquit them. So in a case like the O.J. Simpson case where he was found not guilty, he was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife, they were able to, his defense team was able to instill just enough doubt, just even 6%, 5.1% doubt that he was guilty. If they could even get to that standard now. I know a lot of people think in a case like O.J. Simpson, oh yeah, he did it. He must have done it. He was guilty. Well, the jury did not find that beyond a reasonable doubt standard. It's high. We want to err, and overall, we want to err on the side of not convicting than we want to err on the side of convicting too many people. So that's why we have a high standard. On the civil side, it's a much different standard. It is called preponderance of the evidence. How much is that? Essentially 51%. If you're 51% certain that they were negligent, then they're liable. So it's a much easier standard, and what's at stake? It's just money. We're never putting somebody in jail in a business case. We're never putting them to death. We're just fining them, taking their money, or collecting monetary damages. There are a couple other terms where we have a distinction. So when we talk about murder, that's a criminal issue. So you're guilty of murder. Murder has a sister on the civil side, and that's wrongful death. So in the case of O.J. Simpson, he was found not guilty on the criminal side, but he was found liable. They met that 51% standard. They didn't have 95% evidence, but they had 51% evidence, so they were able to really take his wealth. His ex-wife's family was really able to take his wealth. That's why O.J. immediately moved from California to Florida, because he could go put his money into a big mansion. Florida has a statute that says in a civil case, you can take their money, but you can't take their house. In California, you could liquidate the house. So his strategy, he figured he was probably toast in the civil side. We come up against this distinction all the time. You might remember the George Zimmerman case from a couple summers ago, where a big public case where he had gotten into an altercation with someone. He was on a neighborhood watch program, and there was a gun involved, and Zimmerman pulled the trigger, and the young man that he was in the altercation with died. There was a big question of whether George Zimmerman committed murder. The jury had just at least that 6% or more of doubt, and they didn't feel like they could rise to the standard of committing him to prison, taking away his life. They couldn't meet the beyond reasonable doubt. There will probably be a civil case if it's not already begun. In most of these types of situations, the family comes in with a civil case, it's much more likely that the family will be able to collect something in the George Zimmerman case financially. That's just how the system works. There are really two systems. Again, criminal is guilty, civil is liable. Don't use the terms interchangeably. We weren't talking business law. We're always talking civil. Preponderance of the evidence, 51% liability. I'll interject some criminal situations throughout the class because I think they're interesting, and I think you should know a little bit about criminal law in addition to your business law knowledge. But for the most part, we're sticking over here in the liable case, and I hope you won't get those two things confused.