Civil litigation is about filing and responding to a claim in court. If you desire to file a claim in court you must know your cause of action. In Barbados, a case that is started without a cause of action can be dismissed or “struck out”.

What is a cause of Action?

A cause of action is your foundation for commencing a claim against someone else. If your neighbour persistently allows their “waste water” to run onto your property, then your cause of action is ‘nuisance’. In other words, your claim before a court of law is that your neighbour is committing a nuisance against you and you would like the Court to order them to stop that nuisance.

Types of causes of action

If you are a retailer and your supplier refused to deliver goods to you even though you, then your supplier may have breached that contract. If they have breached the contract, you can file a claim against them in a court of law for breach of contract. There are other causes of action, but usually you will either bring an action against another person for an action done to you personally (nuisance) or an action done to you because of a business arrangement (breach of contract).

You can start a case without a cause of action but you cannot win a case without a cause of action.

Even if you are the Defendant (the person against whom the claim has been filed), you still need to know the cause of action. If the claim against you is not grounded in a cause of action then the claim against you must fail. You may have heard about lawyers ‘building a case’. You cannot build a case without a cause of action. In the same way you cannot build successfully without starting with the foundation, you cannot continue a claim successfully without a cause of action.

I cannot say it enough: Know your cause of action!