Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 1197, Reaching a Legal Settlement.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 1197.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Visit our website at eslpodcom, where there is no singing, but there is a learning guide for this episode that you can download right after you become a member of ESL Podcast.
The learning guide contains a complete transcript of everything we say.
This episode is a dialogue between Nadia and Andre about legal problems.
Let's get started.
I'm not sure about this civil lawsuit.
I don't want a long trial.
Relax.
For disputes of this kind.
Neither party wants to fight it out in court, so we almost always reach a settlement.
If we do go to court, the legal fees could skyrocket.
I couldn't afford that.
If we reach a settlement, you won't have to worry too much about that.
If we reach a settlement, they don't need to.
They'll simply pay out.
Even if they don't admit it at least I'll be able to talk freely about it.
Well, that might be a problem.
Many settlements require confidentiality from both parties.
You mean if I settle I can't talk about it?
If there is a confidentiality clause, you'd be in breach of contract if you discussed the settlement.
I didn't know that.
You mean I can't talk about what they did to me without getting my day in court?
That's the long and short of it.
I guess justice is blind, but only for the rich.
Nadia begins by saying There are two kinds of issues that involve the court system, the legal system in the United States.
One is criminal.
That's when you break a law such as one against stealing or a law against killing someone.
That would be a criminal offense.
A civil.
CIVIL issue is one where you do something wrong to someone else and the other person tries to get usually money from you.
For example, I'm driving down the street and I accidentally hit your car.
You could try to get money from me.
This would be what we would call a civil action.
When you go to the government, to the court system, to the legal system and try to get the government to force me to give you money.
We would call this a civil lawsuit, L-A-W-S-U-I-T.
A lawsuit is when I file a complaint if you will, a legal case against you with the government to try to get you to pay me money for something you did wrong.
There are many different kinds of civil lawsuits in the US.
Most of them involve getting money from another person or another organization who did something wrong to you.
Nadia says, I'm not sure about this civil lawsuit.
I don't want a long trial.
A trial T-R-I-A-L refers to the time when you go in front of a judge in a court in order to decide if you are going to win your lawsuit or not.
Andre says relax, this case will never go to trial, meaning you will never have to go in front of a judge.
For disputes of this kind.
Neither party wants to fight it out in court, so we almost always reach a settlement.
A dispute, D-I-S-P-U-T-E, is a disagreement or an argument.
The word party P-A-R-T-Y here doesn't refer to a celebration like a birthday party, but rather to a person or an organization who is involved in a legal action, in this case a civil lawsuit.
Andre says neither party wants to fight it out in court.
To fight it out means to continue arguing.
In court means in a courtroom, in a trial, with a judge and lawyers and sometimes a jury J-U-R-Y.
A group of people who decide who wins the case.
Andre says, we almost always reach a settlement, S-E-T-T-L-E-M-E-N-T.
A settlement is an agreement where you decide to give money to the other person.
Usually this happens without going in front of a judge.
So I say, I'm going to file a lawsuit against you.
I'm going to go to the court and ask the court to make you give me money.
And you say, well, that's not necessary.
Let's just agree that I will give you some money right now.
That agreement is called a settlement agreement.
Nadia says if we do go to court, meaning if we do go in front of a judge, the legal fees could skyrocket.
Legal fees.
F-E-E-S refers to money that you have to pay the lawyers and perhaps the court for having this lawsuit.
The verb to skyrocket, S-K-Y-R-O-C-K-E-T, means to increase very quickly, to increase dramatically.
The price of the house skyrocketed in the last year.
That means the price of the house went up very quickly in the past 12 months.
Nadia says that she's afraid the legal fees could skyrocket.
I couldn't afford that, she says, meaning I would not have enough money for that.
Andre says if we reach a settlement, you won't have to worry too much about that.
Nadia says, all right, but what if they don't want to admit wrongdoing?
To admit, A-D-M-I-T, means to say that you did something wrong.
Wrongdoing, W-R-O-N-G-D-O-I-N-G.
One word refers to something that you did wrong, that you did something wrong.
Andre says if we reach a settlement they don't need to, meaning if we reach an agreement, they don't have to say yes, we made a mistake.
He continues, they'll simply pay out.
To pay P-A-Y out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to give someone money, a large amount of money, a lot of money, usually as part of some sort of settlement, some sort of agreement.
Nadia says even if they don't admit it, at least I'll be able to talk freely about it.
To talk freely, F-R-E-E-L-Y, means to be able to tell anyone you want about something.
In this case, it would mean to talk about perhaps what the other person did wrong to you.
Andre says, well, that might be a problem.
Many settlements require confidentiality.
Confidentiality C-O-N-F-I-D-E-N-T-I-A-L-I-T-Y refers to not talking about something with anyone else.
It refers to information that you cannot give to anyone else.
Many times when you work for a company, you have to agree not to tell anyone outside of your company about what the company is doing.
That's confidentiality.
You have to not tell anyone the company's secrets.
Sometimes legal settlements require that you...
Be quiet about that.
You don't tell anyone about what the other person or company did to you that caused them to pay you money.
So the agreement basically says you can't tell anyone about what we did.
That's part of the agreement in which you will get money.
I'll give you money, but you can't tell anyone about it.
That's a confidentiality agreement, a promise not to talk about something.
This often requires that both parties to the agreement keep quiet about what happened.
Parties, again, means the people involved or the organizations involved in the settlement.
Nadia says, you mean if I settle, I can't talk about it.
Notice the use of the verb there, to settle.
To settle means to sign a settlement agreement.
Andre says if there is a confidentiality clause, you'd be in breach of contract if you discussed the settlement.
A clause, C-L-A-U-S-E, refers to a section or a part of a legal agreement.
If the settlement has a confidentiality clause, a section that requires you not to talk about it, then if you did talk about it, you would be in breach B-R-E-A-C-H of contract.
A contract is an agreement.
The verb to breach means to break or violate.
A breach of contract is when someone violates the contract, when someone doesn't do what the contract or agreement says he's supposed to do.
So if there's a confidentiality clause in the settlement and you talk about it, you are going to be in breach of contract.
You therefore have broken the agreement, and usually, when you break an agreement, when you don't follow an agreement, there are penalties that you have to pay.
There are things that you have to do as punishment.
Nadia says, I didn't know that.
You mean I can't talk about what they did to me without getting my day in court?
To get your day in court means to actually go in front of a judge and talk about what happened as part of a civil lawsuit.
If you sign an agreement with someone, There is no court appearance.
There is no day in court.
You don't go in front of a judge.
So what Nadia is asking is if it's true that if she signs this agreement, she won't get to tell anyone about what this company or this organization did to her.
That is, she won't get her day in court to explain to the whole world what happened.
Andre says, that's the long and short of it.
The expression, the long and short of something, means that is correct.
That is an accurate statement.
We usually use this expression when we're trying to give someone a short answer or a summary of something, a longer story or a more complicated piece of information.
Someone may ask you, well, what happened yesterday?
Well, you could say this person said this and the other person said that, but the long and short of it is we're all going to lose our jobs.
The long and short of something is a brief statement of whatever that information is.
You might say, well, why don't you just say the short of it?
I don't know, but that's not the expression.
We say the long and short of it, even though it's really just the short version of some longer piece of information.
Nadia says, I guess justice is blind but only for the rich.
The expression justice J-U-S-T-I-C-E is blind B-L-I-N-D is used to show that the law is fair, that the law doesn't care about who you are.
Nadia says that she thinks justice is blind, meaning our legal system is fair only for the rich, only for people who have a lot of money.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
I'm not sure about this civil lawsuit.
I don't want a long trial.
Relax.
This case will never go to trial.
For disputes of this kind.
Neither party wants to fight it out in court, so we almost always reach a settlement.
If we do go to court, the legal fees could skyrocket.
I couldn't afford that.
If we reach a settlement, you won't have to worry too much about that.
All right, but what if they don't want to admit wrongdoing?
If we reach a settlement, they don't need to.
They'll simply pay out.
Even if they don't admit it, at least I'll be able to talk freely about it.
Well, that might be a problem.
Many settlements require confidentiality from both parties.
You mean if I settle, I can't talk about it?
If there is a confidentiality clause, you'd be in breach of contract if you discussed the settlement.
I didn't know that.
You mean I can't talk about what they did to me without getting my day in court?
That's the long and short of it.
I guess justice is blind, but only for the rich.
I could talk about the qualities of great script writers on the Internet today, But the long and short of it is that the best one is our script writer, Dr Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2016 by the Center for Educational Development.
