North Dakota Civil Litigation Legal Questions

It is unclear whether no lawsuit has yet been filed, if you are still in litigation, or whether there has already been a litigation which resulted in a judgment against you.  If you have not yet been sued, and have no agreement obligating you to show your tax returns to the other side, you have no obligation to do so.  Of course, it may be that the attorney is demanding your tax returns because his client won't sue you if you can demonstrate that you don't have significant financial resouces, in which case refusing the demand can result in you getting sued. If you are in litigation, litigants are entitled to see the other side's documents that are relevant to the case.  However, even if the tax returns would be relevant, they are usually (but not always) protected from discovery.  Other financial information, however, again assuming it is relevant, is usually fair game. If a judgment has been entered against you and has not been paid, the judgment creditor is entitled to get discovery about your financial situation in an attempt to locate assets which can be used to satisfy the judgment.  In this context, you may be required to produce your tax records.... Read More

Your wife can sue those who made the false statements for slander and/or libel (depending on whether the false accusations were written or oral).  Whether she can successfully sue the owners of the business (I am assuming that the business is not a separate legal entity; if, for example, the business is incorporated, the corporation may be liable for the actions of its employees, but the individual shareholders of the corporation would not be, although they could be liable for their own actions if they participated in the defamation themselves)  is a more difficult issue.  Assuming they did not participate in the defamation themselves, by either spreading the lies or instructing their employees to do so, they could still possibly be found liable if the wrongful acts of the employees were done in the course and scope of their employment.  For example, if the employees defamed you in an attempt to gain a competitive edge for their employer, that would be in the scope of their employment, and the employer would likely be responsible.  If that same employee gossiped about your wife to his brother-in-law, having nothing to do with the business, the employer would probably not be liable.... Read More