What exactly is the meaning of the word proceedings in: "The court ordered the film to pay for the cost of the legal proceedings."?

Question

I don't really understand the word "proceeding" in general, can anyone please explain it to me, maybe in simpler terms? Also, I've seen examples of this word being used in a sentence, I wonder why sometimes it goes with legal, sometimes with criminal?

As in:

legal proceeding (mentioned in the sentence above) and criminal proceeding.

As for the sentence above, in what way can I understand it, as it says the film has to do something with the proceeding.

Please shed light on this word for me, thank you.

Answer 1

Proceed means to continue through a process. Proceed and process come from the same root. So in this case, legal proceedings is similar to saying "legal process". The legal proceedings refer to the process of hiring a lawyer, going through a court case, etc.

Answer 2

“Proceedings” is another way of saying “process,“… So the sentence you gave sounds like it comes from an article about a film production that got into legal trouble, and then was ordered by the court to pay for the legal costs of the case. (Typically this means they lost and have to pay not only their own expenses, but the expenses of the other party that they lost to.)

To explain a bit further, I’ll make up an example. That sentence might show up in a story about how a film production is shooting a movie on a city street, and one of the production vehicles accidentally hits a parked car and the film production company refuses to pay for the damages.

The owner of the car takes them to court. The film production company (“the film”) loses the court case and the judge says that not only do they have to pay for the damages to the car, but they also have to pay for the cost of all legal proceedings. This means they will need to pay the car owner money to repair car as well as for all expenses the owner incurred in defending themselves in court (think: lawyer fees).