#Ask the Lawyer: What does that legal term mean?

By Ron Sokol. The Daily Breeze

Posted: 11/12/13, 6:25 PM PST | Updated: on 11/12/2013

Q: My attorney says the other law firm is really churning the file. I want to understand what that means. It sounds bad, but can they get away with it?

R.B. Los Angeles

A: Churning means like making butter stirring and stirring and stirring the pot, continually running up the tab, costing more and more money. In the most cynical version, it is the lawyer padding his or her bills; often enough, however, it is a strategy adopted by the client with the attorney to try to wear down the other side by making things so costly that that party simply wants to give up or settle. Can it be stopped? Yes, among other steps your counsel might seek a protective order from the court, if what the other lawyer is doing is oppressive or burdensome. On the other hand, if you can keep up with the churner, and beat him or her on the merits, more power to you!

Q: So, we have a case, but we don t know for sure who is at fault. Our lawyer said we can pursue several parties on the basis of res ipsa loquiter. You have to explain that one to me.

V.C. Lomita

A: Res ispa loquiter is Latin for the thing itself speaks. Specifically, the law in some instances allows an injured party to sue those who are in the stream of the harm-causing event. A classic example is a sofa flies out of the window of a hotel and injures an innocent person walking by. The hotel itself can be sued because you cannot then-and-there necessarily pinpoint just who exactly is to blame (if any one party in particular). Another example is in the medical malpractice field, if a patient winds up with a sponge in his esophagus after surgery. Just who should be held accountable for that item remaining in the body, which soon causes a harmful blockage? The hospital, surgeon and surgical staff (including nurses) all might be named. Again, the principle turns on not being able to exactly pinpoint just who is to blame, but it appears they all may be responsible, in some real way.

Q: I am told the court order issued in my divorce will be corrected nunc pro tunc. With what I have experienced so far, can you give me any comfort about that one?

Q.M. Seal Beach

A: Nunc pro tunc is Latin for now and then. It means modifying an order, judgment or court ruling, back to the earlier date it was rendered. Often there is a clerical error that is brought to the attention of the court, and corrected without much in the way of any proceedings. It could be the monetary figure, or the spelling of a party s name, or similar basic part of an order, judgment or ruling. Courts (or clerks) are human and they can goof. This is a typically noncontroversial way of getting a routine error corrected.