I thought civil cases were designed for person vs person, contract disputes, divorce, etc. but in this case the it seems like the state is accusing someone of breaking the law but then not giving them the protections of A criminal trial (unanimous jury to be found guilty/liable). I am confused on how this works.
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Not all laws are criminal laws. The state can both sue and be sued in civil court, if there is a matter of monetary damages between the state and a citizen. This also works at the federal level, wherein the federal government can be sued by state governments and vice-versa for certain matters.
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> but in this case the it seems like the state is accusing someone of breaking the law but then not giving them the protections of A criminal trial (unanimous jury to be found guilty/liable).
One of the things about a civil trial is that it can only result in judgements to pay monetary penalties or repay damages, not prison time or capital punishment. A big reason we have such a high standard in criminal trials is that we don’t want the state, which we give a very large amount of power over our lives, to imprison or kill people unless we’re absolutely sure they’re guilty of a crime. (At least that’s the theory, at the moment plea bargaining is putting a lot of innocent people in prison and giving them criminal records). While in theory the state can sue and find in favor of you owing a bunch of money, the old adage is “you can’t squeeze blood from a stone” – if you go bankrupt it will fuck your credit up, but if you don’t have the money to pay, they can’t really do much about that, as we don’t have debtors prisons. (Again, at least in theory, there are some ways that you can end up in jail for not paying a debt for long enough but technically it’s for violating a court order or something similar.)
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