Barratry is a legal term that, at common law, described a criminal offense committed by people who are overly officious in instigating or encouraging prosecution of groundless litigation, or who bring repeated or persistent acts of litigation for the purposes of profit or harassment.
Frivolous litigation is the use of legal processes with apparent disregard for the merit of one's own arguments. It includes presenting an argument with reason to know that it would certainly fail, or acting without a basic level of diligence in researching the relevant law and facts. That an argument was lost does not imply the argument was frivolous; a party may present an argument with a low chance of success, so long as it proceeds from applicable law.
Vexatious litigation is legal action which is brought solely to harass or subdue an adversary. It may take the form of a primary frivolous lawsuit or may be the repetitive, burdensome, and unwarranted filing of meritless motions in a matter which is otherwise a meritorious cause of action. Filing vexatious litigation is considered an abuse of the judicial process and may result in sanctions against the offender.
Punitive damages, or exemplary damages, are damages assessed in order to punish the defendant for outrageous conduct and/or to reform or deter the defendant and others from engaging in conduct similar to that which formed the basis of the lawsuit. Although the purpose of punitive damages is not to compensate the plaintiff, the plaintiff will receive all or some of the punitive damages in award.
Champerty and maintenance are doctrines in common law jurisdictions that aim to preclude frivolous litigation:
A lawsuit is a proceeding by one or more parties against one or more parties in a civil court of law. The archaic term "suit in law" is found in only a small number of laws still in effect today. The term "lawsuit" is used with respect to a civil action brought by a plaintiff who requests a legal remedy or equitable remedy from a court. The defendant is required to respond to the plaintiff's complaint or else risk default judgment. If the plaintiff is successful, judgment is entered in favor of the plaintiff, and the Court may impose the legal and/or equitable remedies available against the defendant (respondent). A variety of court orders may be issued in connection with or as part of the judgment to enforce a right, award damages or restitution, or impose a temporary or permanent injunction to prevent an act or compel an act. A declaratory judgment may be issued to prevent future legal disputes.
An abuse of process is the unjustified or unreasonable use of legal proceedings or process to further a cause of action by an applicant or plaintiff in an action. It is a claim made by the respondent or defendant that the other party is misusing or perverting regularly issued court process not justified by the underlying legal action. In common law it is classified as a tort distinct from the intentional tort of malicious prosecution. It is a tort that involves misuse of the public right of access to the courts. In the United States it may be described as a legal process being commenced to gain an unfair litigation advantage.
Tortious interference, also known as intentional interference with contractual relations, in the common law of torts, occurs when one person intentionally damages someone else's contractual or business relationships with a third party, causing economic harm. As an example, someone could use blackmail to induce a contractor into breaking a contract; they could threaten a supplier to prevent them from supplying goods or services to another party; or they could obstruct someone's ability to honor a contract with a client by deliberately refusing to deliver necessary goods.
Alienation of affections is a common law tort, abolished in many jurisdictions. Where it still exists, an action is brought by a spouse against a third party alleged to be responsible for damaging the marriage, most often resulting in divorce. The defendant in an alienation of affections suit is typically an adulterous spouse's lover, although family members, counselors, and therapists or clergy members who have advised a spouse to seek divorce have also been sued for alienation of affections.
Alperin v. Vatican Bank was an unsuccessful class action suit by Holocaust survivors brought against the Vatican Bank and the Franciscan Order filed in San Francisco, California, on November 15, 1999. The case was initially dismissed as a political question by the District Court for the Northern District of California in 2003, but was reinstated in part by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in 2005. That ruling attracted attention as a precedent at the intersection of the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) and the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA).
Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250 (2006), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States involving the pleading standard for retaliatory prosecution claims against government officials. After a successful lobbying attempt by the CEO of a manufacturing company against competing devices that the US Postal Service supported, the CEO found himself the target of an investigation by US postal inspectors and a criminal prosecution that was dismissed for lack of evidence. The CEO then filed suit against the inspectors and other government officials for seeking to prosecute him in retaliation for exercising his First Amendment rights to criticize postal policy. The Court ruled 5-2 that to prove that the prosecution was caused by a retaliatory motive, the plaintiff bringing such a claim must allege and prove that the criminal charges were brought without probable cause.
Armstrong I–VIII were a lengthy series of lawsuits and other legal actions, primarily in the California state courts, arising from Gerald Armstrong's departure from the Church of Scientology (COS). The COS argued that Armstrong, a former COS employee, improperly took private papers belonging to the Church, while Armstrong argued that he took the papers to protect himself from improper disciplinary proceedings and that the Church did, in fact, discipline him improperly.
Legal malpractice is the term for negligence, breach of fiduciary duty, or breach of contract by a lawyer during the provision of legal services that causes harm to a client.
Sham peer review or malicious peer review is a name given to the abuse of a medical peer review process to attack a doctor for personal or other non-medical reasons. The American Medical Association conducted an investigation of medical peer review in 2007 and concluded that while it is easy to allege misconduct and 15% of surveyed physicians indicated that they were aware of peer review misuse or abuse, cases of malicious peer review able to be proven through the legal system are rare.
Tort reform consists of changes in the civil justice system in common law countries that aim to reduce the ability of plaintiffs to bring tort litigation or to reduce damages they can receive. Such changes are generally justified under the grounds that litigation is an inefficient means to compensate plaintiffs; that tort law permits frivolous or otherwise undesirable litigation to crowd the court system; or that the fear of litigation can serve to curtail innovation, raise the cost of consumer goods or insurance premiums for suppliers of services, and increase legal costs for businesses. Tort reform has primarily been prominent in common law jurisdictions, where criticism of judge-made rules regarding tort actions manifests in calls for statutory reform by the legislature.
A legal threat is a statement by a party that it intends to take legal action on another party, generally accompanied by a demand that the other party take an action demanded by the first party or refrain from taking or continuing actions objected to by the demanding party.
Tolling is a legal doctrine that allows for the pausing or delaying of the running of the period of time set forth by a statute of limitations, such that a lawsuit may potentially be filed even after the statute of limitations has run. Although grounds for tolling the statute of limitations vary by jurisdiction, common grounds include:
Taus v. Loftus, 151 P.3d 1185 was a Supreme Court of California case in which the court held that academic researchers' publication of information relating to a study by another researcher was newsworthy and subject to protection under the state's anti-SLAPP act. The court noted that the defendants had not disclosed the plaintiff's name and that Nicole Taus had disclosed it herself when she filed the case under her own name. The court did find that Taus had alleged a prima facie case that Loftus had misrepresented herself during the investigation and that this one count may proceed to trial.
McDonough v. Smith, 588 U.S. ___ (2019), was a United States Supreme Court case from the October 2018 term. In a 6–3 ruling, the Court held that the 3-year statute of limitations for a fabrication of evidence civil lawsuit under section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act begins to run when the criminal case ends in the plaintiff's favor.
The special motion to strike is a motion authorized by the California Code of Civil Procedure intended to stop strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPPs). They were created in 1992 with the purpose of encouraging participation in matters of public significance. The motion allows a litigant to strike a complaint when it arises from conduct in furtherance of the moving party's rights to petition or free speech in connection with a public issue. If the moving party prevails, they are entitled to attorney's fees by right. The motion is codified in section 425.16 of the Code. More than 300 published court opinions have interpreted and applied California's anti-SLAPP law. Because the right to file a special motion to strike is substantive immunity to suit, rather than a merely procedural right, federal courts apply the law to state law claims they hear under diversity jurisdiction.
