What is the difference between a criminal case and a civil action?

Second, the difference between criminal and civil proceedings is patent. When a criminal case is dismissed after a preliminary hearing for lack of evidence, jeopardy does not attach and if further evidence is forthcoming, the criminal defendant can be recharged. The closest analogy in the civil setting would be a judgment of dismissal on demurrer, which would not operate as a bar where the demurrer was sustained for technical or formal as opposed to substantive defects. But that is not our situation. Here we have a final judgment following determination of a motion for summary judgment. That judgment is on the merits and ordinarily, the doctrine of res judicata would preclude subsequent prosecution of a new suit concerning the same alleged wrong. ⁹ However, if subsequent proceedings are not foreclosed by principles of res judicata, the analysis shifts to defining the nature of the underlying prior action--is it an independent, separate adversarial action, involving the expense and trauma of preparing a response, and having a procedural life of its own? If it is, it will support a later tort claim for malicious prosecution; if instead it is a subsidiary or purely defensive proceeding, it will not. (See Camarena v. Sequoia Ins. Co. (1987) 190 Cal.App.3d 1089, 1094-1095, 235 Cal.Rptr. 820 [insurer's action for declaratory relief--although related to plaintiff's pending personal injury suit--was sufficiently adversarial and independent to support plaintiff's action against insurer for malicious prosecution]; see also Merlet v. Rizzo (1998) 64 Cal.App.4th 53, 59-60, 62-63, 75 Cal.Rptr.2d 83.)