The Essential Elements
What You Must Prove to Win
Knowing the Right Stuff
The formula in the image above is lethal cyanide (C2HNO). It is the stuff once used in gas chambers to put an end to the lives of men and women convicted of capital crimes. A single gram of the stuff will kill you instantly.
But, if you remove any one of the elements (carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, or oxygen) that make cyanide cyanide, the stuff is no longer cyanide. It's something else. And the ingredients must be in the same proportions: two carbons and one each of hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen. Change the formula, and you have “something else”.
Something else doesn’t win court battles.
The “right stuff” does.
To win in court you must allege and prove the right stuff, i.e., the "essential fact elements" set out by the law of the case.
Nothing else matters!
Nothing else matters!
Nothing else matters!
Anything other than the essential fact elements only gets in the way of winning. It confuses judges and juries. It gives your opponent smoke and mirrors to fill the court with confusion, where the case should be as clear and straight forward as possible.
Your case - civil or criminal - will be decided by whether or not the essential fact elements of the law of the case are alleged and proven by admissible evidence. (We'll get into what's admissible and what is not in a later lesson.)
If either side fails to allege all the essential fact elements of at least one law of the case, that side loses even before the case can begin. The defending party will move for dismissal on the ground that the law of the case (a crime or the right to sue we lawyers call a "cause of action") was not sufficiently alleged.
This point is critical. If you miss this you will miss everything!
If the party bringing a case succeeds in alleging all the essential fact elements of at least one law of the case, then he must prove that each and every one of the alleged fact elements is true by presenting admissible evidence.
That’s it in a nutshell.
Fail to allege and prove one essential fact element and you lose.
Allege and prove all essential fact elements required by the law of the case and you win.
I’ve relied on this simple truth for many years and won for my clients by alleging and proving essential fact elements, while my opponents wandered in the weeds trying to persuade judges with rhetoric, fancy word games, silk ties, expensive shoes, and outright lies.
Persuasion does not win court cases. Fancy word games do not win court cases. Lies do not win court cases. And, of course, expensive get ups and bombastic posturing don't win either.
Alleging and proving essential fact elements does.
Court Chemistry
I majored in chemistry at Florida State University in the early 60's. It prepared me to be a case-winning lawyer, because chemistry is about elements and how they combine to form compounds.
Court cases are about fact elements and how they combine with laws to defeat liars and cheats.
This course will empower you to use fact elements and the law to command biased judges, conquer crooked lawyers, and control evasive witnesses ... but you must do things the way this course teaches because, just like the rules of chemistry, the rules of court are specific and precise. They allow for no deviation, no personal opinion, no sneaky trick. To win you must abide by and enforce them!
Too many good people get lost in the weeds of legal confusion, messy thinking, or making more of their legal battle than the battle actually requires.
Tell yourself, “This stuff is easy. This stuff is easy. This stuff is easy!”
Because it is!
The "legal system" is a set of rules. The lost world thinks of the legal system as if it were the people who work in the system, lawyers, judges, legislators. People are not the system. The system is a set of rules. Rules that are fair. Rules that are powerful to promote Justice for each and every one of you.
But they are rules, not suggestions!
Learn them well.
These rules favor good people who obey the law, who have the law "on their side", who want what's best for everyone, who deserve the benefits of Justice.
Keep in mind that there's a chemistry to them. Each rule fits perfectly with all the others. They work together, once you know how to work them.
Two atoms of hydrogen combines with one atom of oxygen to create a water molecule.
2H2 + O2→ 2H2O
Hydrogen and oxygen in this proportion create water. Nothing else. They obey a rule!
This same principle applies in court. Allege and prove the essential fact elements that the law of your case requires for you to deserve the victory you seek, and voila!
You win!
Essential Elements
The essential fact elements in a particular case depend on what issues are in controversy and what the opposing parties seek the court to do for them.
Here’s a simple contracts case.
Three essential fact elements: Duty, Breach, and Damages.
To win as plaintiff, you wouldn’t allege those three things as I show them here. Instead, you would allege the actual facts of the circumstance to show:
The ultimate facts that support the plaintiff’s case.
For this example you might say that on such and such date the parties signed a written agreement, and you might attach a copy of that agreement as an exhibit. You might say what goods or services the defendant promised to deliver in exchange for money. You might say that the plaintiff paid the money, how the money was paid, and possibly attach a copy of a cancelled check or signed receipt. You might say how the defendant's failure to provide the promised goods and services resulted in the plaintiff's financial loss, perhaps including more than the amount of the payment itself.
Those, then, would constitute the "essential fact elements" for the cause of action known as breach of contract.
You would then use your “5 Discovery Tools” (explained later in this course with forms and simplified explanations) to get admissible evidence in support of those alleged facts tending to show that the facts alleged were true.
Thanks to Google® and other online tools, anyone can find the law and essential fact elements for any crime or civil action ... fact elements that must be alleged and proven to win any case.
It is this simple!
Criminal Cases
To win a criminal case the prosecutor must allege and prove all essential fact elements of the alleged crime beyond all reasonable doubt.
The burden to prove those facts is on the prosecutor, not the defendant.
The defendant does not sit idly by as the prosecutor proceeds with his case. Instead he works to obtain evidence that tends to prove that the prosecutor's allegations of act are false or unproveable!
If the defendant can present an “alternative theory” that fits the alleged facts, he must be acquitted, because the prosecutor has not proved his case beyond all reasonable doubt. An alternative theory fitting the alleged facts but not involving the accused, prevents conviction.
If you are accused of a crime, your first step is to research the official statutes to know what essential fact elements the prosecutor must allege and prove beyond all reasonable doubt. Everything turns on those fact elements and the ability of the prosecutor to attach them to you and only you!
To convict an accused defendant for theft in Texas, for example, the prosecutor must allege and prove with the presentation of admissible evidence that beyond all reasonable doubt the accused:
The prosecutor might also allege and prove that:
What if the accused brought it back the very next day? Does that let him off the hook? Is that one of the elements? Only the official law on the official books can tell you that. It differs from state-to-state, and in federal court it may be something altogether different. You must rely solely on the official sources to know what the law says about the elements.
Criminal cases are decided solely on the law and the essential fact elements stated in the law.
If the elements apply to the accused, the accused is convicted.
Otherwise, he goes free.
If people in prison at this very moment had learned what this course teaches or had a “better attorney” who knew (and wasn’t afraid to stand up to the judge and fight the prosecutor tooth-and-nail) many of them would be free today. Instead, too many innocent people are rotting away in an iron cage.
More on criminal cases later in my course.
Civil Cases for Plaintiffs
To win a civil case the plaintiff must allege and prove all essential fact elements of at least one “cause of action” (i.e., claim that is defined by the law of the case for which the court has authority to award money damages or to order injunctive relief).
If the plaintiff alleges all essential fact elements required by the law that creates a cause of action and then proves all those facts by the “greater weight” of admissible evidence, he wins.
If he fails to allege all the essential facts or fails to prove that each and every one of those alleged essential facts is true by the greater weight of admissible evidence, he loses.
That's it!
It is no more complicated than this, and everyone has a God-given right to know!
Later lessons in this course will explain causes of action in more detail and list the essential fact elements for the most common ones you’re likely to encounter, but don’t go there just yet.
Causes of action in civil cases are like crimes in criminal cases. They all have essential fact elements that must be alleged and proved.
Greater weight of evidence in civil cases.
Beyond all reasonable doubt in criminal cases.
Civil Cases for Defendants
There are three ways to win as defendant in a civil case:
#1 Plaintiff did not allege all essential fact elements in his Complaint.
#2 Plaintiff cannot prove all essential fact elements he alleged.
#3 Defendant can prove all essential elements of at least one Affirmative Defense (explained in a later lesson, but don’t go there yet).
Most lawyers I’ve defeated did not understand affirmative defenses or how to use them. Affirmative defenses have essential fact elements, just like the plaintiff's causes of action. If the defendant can allege and prove all the essential fact elements of at least one of his affirmative defenses by the greater weight of admissible evidence, he wins.
I never met a lawyer who understood the defense tactics taught in this course. Every defense lawyer that I fought as the plaintiff's lawyer failed to attack my client’s case with properly alleged affirmative defenses. If they used affirmative defenses at all, they simply named their defenses and alleged no facts in support. That was the end of it. None of them understood that affirmative defenses have essential elements, just like crimes and causes of action. They didn’t allege the facts, so their affirmative defenses failed. (Once the pleadings are "closed" they cannot be reopened to allege new facts. More on this later in the course.)
Here are the three essential fact elements for the affirmative defense called “Assumption of Risk”.
I used this to win for the Sensei of a karate school when one of his students claimed to be injured while sparring in class. His parents hired a lawyer who was eager to sue my client for money damages, knowing he would take one third of the judgment if my brain fell out, which it did not.
I won by alleging the essential fact elements of this affirmative defense, instead of just naming the defense as other lawyers do, then proved by the greater weight of admissible evidence the all of those essential fact elements were true as alleged.
My filing looked something like this:
Assumption of Risk
How to Allege Elements
As stated above, the essential facts elements are alleged in pleadings.
Facts.
Ultimate facts!
Facts like, “Defendant stole plaintiff’s bicycle.”
Allege all the essential fact elements, then STOP.
Allege only the facts are things you can prove by admissible evidence. (More about evidence in a later lesson, a very important lesson you must not miss. But don't go there yet!)
If you can’t prove a fact, that fact won't help you win.
Don’t allege facts you can’t prove with admissible evidence.
Conclusion
In the rest of this course you will learn how to exercise your God-given rights to get Justice in court.
You will sharpen your axe by understanding clearly that one wins by:
That’s it.
That’s the foundation for everything that follows, and there is a lot that follows, a very great lot of things you will learn, but none of it is any more complicated than what you've learned so far.
Study each lesson thoroughly before proceeding to the next lesson.
Don’t rush your legal education. Never move to the next lesson until the lesson you are in makes sense. Go over and over the materials. If you don't understand something, slow down!
Read slowly!
One word at-a-time.
One sentence at-a-time.
One concept at-a-time.
Like eating an elephant.
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