I got punched, I won’t go into details, but a guy hit me and my friend hit him in my defense. I got hit first. And third, and fourth (the second was my friend hitting him).
Anyway, I was wondering if I pressed charges in Saskatchewan, would hiring a lawyer be out of my pocket?
YOU shouldn’t need a lawyer unless you hit someone.
As the person being hit, the prosecution is your lawyer.
As the victim there should be no cost to you. Have you reported this to the police?
If you want to file a civil suit, generally the costs are done on a contingency basis - that is, the lawyer gets payed when you get a settlement.
I don’t know how the laws work in Canada. But you could possibly be getting your friend in trouble as well. He/She was not attacked by the other individual but still assalted him. So your friend cannot even clain it was in self defense.
That’s why I was curious. On the other hand, I’d always thought that defending others is under the same kind of defense: in the sense that if I see a person getting mugged and I run up and knock out the mugger, I (as far as I know) shouldn’t be charged with assault.
Disclaimer: I am not your lawyer, I am not licensed in Canada, and you should consult a lawyer in your particular jurisdiction. In fact, stop reading this right now.
Generally, defense of others is a valid affirmative defense if the person asserting it would have had a valid self-defense claim if he was the person being defended. In other words, Person A comes across Person B beating the snot out of Person C; A intervenes on C’s behalf. The validity of A’s claim of defense of others depends on if C could have asserted self-defense if C had been the one to strike B.
Obviously, this is highly dependent on the individual laws of your own state or territory (or country, even), so don’t take the above as gospel – it’s the general rule, which is true in more places than it isn’t, but is by no means universal.
Thank you very much. We got (unofficial) advice from a law student, and s/he told us that the school was pretty much useless since it happened out of school grounds (regardless that it was within 10 minutes after a school function). So we’re probably going to the police tomorrow.
IANA Lawyer, but I once did a project on this very topic for a law class. As you believe, it was legal for your friend to come to your aid as long as he didn’t escalate the fight(ie make the fight more violent, like bringing out a weapon and using it).
Oh, that was for a Canadian law class, and because the Criminal Code is federal law, it applies to anywhere in Canada.