Bill Cosby is on trial again, this time in a civil case in L.A. Here’s what that means.

Bill Cosby is on trial again for alleged sexual assault, less than a year after the 84-year-old comedian was released from state prison in Montgomery County on an overturned conviction in a separate 2018 case.

This time, Cosby is not in a Norristown courtroom but a Los Angeles one, and the case is civil, not criminal. It is one of the few outstanding cases left against Cosby, whom 60 women have accused of rape, sexual assault, and other sexual misconduct.

California resident Judy Huth, 64, says Cosby sexually assaulted her in the 1970s, according to the lawsuit, which was filed in 2014.

» READ MORE: Bill Cosby is released from prison after the Pa. Supreme Court overturns his sexual assault conviction

Huth, a teenager at the time, says in court filings that she and a friend met the Philadelphia-born comedian at a park in the Los Angeles area. Days later, Huth says, Cosby gave her alcohol and took her to the Playboy Mansion. Once there, he kissed her on the mouth, she says, and forced her to perform a sex act on him.

She seeks financial damages, the exact amount of which is to be decided at trial.

Cosby and his legal team deny the allegations.

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After Huth last week said she was assaulted in 1975, instead of 1974 as she previously stated, Cosby’s lawyer Jennifer Bonjean called the case “trial by ambush.”

Cosby does not plan to attend or testify virtually at the trial, his representatives said, in part due to his health; he is blind from glaucoma. The Santa Monica jury of eight women and four men has vowed to not let that affect their judgment.

Civil trials are considered to be conflicts between private parties, where criminal trials are prosecuted by the state or federal government.

If a defendant is found guilty in a civil trial, the penalty is typically financial. In a criminal trial, penalties can include probation or jail time.

The burden of proof is also lower in a civil trial. Jurors must decide whether there is a preponderance of evidence — or whether it is more likely than not — that the defendant did what is alleged. In a criminal trial, the burden of proof is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Jurors do not have to come to a unanimous decision, either. Only nine of 12 jurors will have to come to an agreement.

Last June, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned Cosby’s sexual assault conviction in the case involving Andrea Constand.

The decision was not based on insufficient evidence.

It hinged on former prosecutor Bruce L. Castor Jr.’s 2006 promise to Cosby that he would never be charged with drugging and assaulting Constand. Castor made the promise to the comedian in exchange for testimony in a civil case on the charges. The declaration was not put in writing, and Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin Steele contended — and Common Pleas Court Judge Steven T. O’Neill found — that there was no evidence of a deal that prohibited future prosecution.

A divided state Supreme Court determined that it did, freeing Cosby from prison and barring him from being prosecuted again on Constand’s charges.

The reversal was a blow to sexual assault survivors and advocates across the country, who years earlier had hailed his conviction — and subsequent sentencing to three to 10 years in prison — as the first example of justice handed down to a celebrity in the #MeToo era.

The overturned conviction “may discourage those who seek justice for sexual assault in the criminal justice system from reporting or participating in the prosecution of the assailant or may force a victim to choose between filing either a criminal or civil action,” Constand and her lawyers said last year in a statement.

When Cosby was released from prison last year, he returned to his mansion in Elkins Park.

» READ MORE: Bill Cosby’s already plotting his post-prison comeback. But is America ready to welcome him?

At the time, spokesperson Andrew Wyatt said the comedian fielded congratulatory calls from fellow celebrities and was planning speaking tours. No specific projects have been announced in the months since.

This article contains information from the Associated Press.