Say someone was getting sued for something frivolous, does the victim have to respond?
Even if it did would laughed out of court, the victim would still be stuck with lawyer fees. Is there a way victims of such suits can say “no, this is ridiculous” without paying hefty lawyer fees? Kind of a roll-your-eyes “I’m not playing” and shut the door?
I know what’s frivolous is not a universal definition. Let’s say a neighbor is complaining a toddler makes too much noise when she walks (breaking none of the laws or bylaws, nothing is willful, not late at night, etc).
Totally anecdotal and based off my ‘theory of Law’, but I’m going to say “absolutely not”. It is a court of law after all, and all cases have a right to be at least heard and answered to.
Just think of the many millions of people who didn’t think their pursuits were frivilous (hell, George Washington comes to mind) and look how that shaped our legal landscape.
Tripler
The only one that has the “right” to laugh it out of court is the judge–and even then he has to have the weight of the evidence as the laughing gas.
If the [del]victim[/del] defendant is so convinced that the case is frivolous, they can respond and appear in court “in pro per” and not have any attorney’s fees, although, they’ll probably have some costs for filing and serving their Answer to the Complaint. IIRC, filing an Answer at the courthouse is free.
In their Answer, they can quite easily say “This is bunk, and here’s why” but it will most likely have to go before a judge at the trial setting conference where both sides appear before the judge and attempt to convince the judge why or why not the case should proceed.
This is based on my experiences successfully defending against a civil suit in California last year. Other courts (eg: criminal or family) and other states will have different rules. My case involved two rounds of interrogatories, demands to inspect documents, etc, and cost about $350 in filing and service costs. At the end, the judge said “Plaintiff’s claim is denied. Judgement for the defendant plus costs” so I was able to then serve the plaintiff a bill for my costs. Did they pay? Well… At least I won the case.
ETA: My neighbor is an attorney, so I had huge amounts of help with regard to what and how to ask. There’s no way I’d have wanted to do this on my own without his help, but most large cities have at least one source of free legal aid.
I had one of these. I went to the local Bar which had a Lawyer referal service, and “free advice”. The dude said “this is BS” and showed me how to prepare a answer, and how/where to file. They dropped it. And he charged me 0. Your work or Union might also have a legal referal service.
You might be able to get by with a good Nolo Press book. Very helpful, but BS or not, if the suit was for any significant amount, I’d consult a lawyer.
If the claim is not known to law, and if it would not reasonably be a novel claim, the court should toss it out. For example, if you were sued by your neighbour because you did not paint the coins in your pocket, the court would toss out the claim, or at least you hope that it would (thus even for nutty claims, you should still defend).
If the claim is known to law, or is a reasonable novel claim, then yes, you should defend, for if you do not, you risk having judgment made against you simply because you have not put forward evidence or argument to counter the plaintiff.
You can defend yourself without a lawer if you wish. You should at least know the law, know the court procedure, and be dispassionate in your review of the facts, but if the matter is for more than you can afford to lose, you should hire a lawyer. A lawyer can help you recognize any weak points in your case, and can organize your defence into nice neat little boxes that the judge can easily recognize.
(Muffin, who at the moment is being sued for over a million dollars for something frivolous and vexatious.)
This is currently happening to SFWA, among others; a shady agent complained about being so categorized and sued everyone in sight for defamation. There’s no merit in the case, but everyone involved is hiring lawyers because they have to.
It’s not something you can safely ignore. The judge may rule for the plaintiff if you don’t defend yourself.
Extraordinarily nit-picky nit pick: you do not have to answer, but you do have to respond. (Consider your Rule 12 motions, for example; those aren’t answers, but they are responses sufficient to prevent default from being taken.)
The governing statute in California is Code of Civil Procedure section 585 et seq. If there’s no response to the complaint within the time permitted, the plaintiff can have default entered. The plaintiff then schedules a default prove-up hearing, but note how the statutory scheme differs for contracts (subdivision (a) of section 585) and for torts (subdivision (b)).
There was a case here in Canada a while ago where the Canadian defendants didn’t defend themselves from a suit in Florida, over land initially valued at $8,000. By the time the matter was finished, they owed close to a million.
Would it be unprofessional for me to suggest that the Ontario lawyer should be taken out and beaten with a stick – seeing as how cock-ups like this raise both my E & O insurance and my litigation surcharge costs.
You have to file a response. Otherwise, the plaintiff’s entitled to a default.
The response should say something like: “Defendant denies each and every allegation contained in the complaint,” or something similar.
Filing frivolous lawsuits is not really a good idea. For one, you have to pay a fee each time you do it. For another, it’s not going to accomplish anything. And you can be sanctioned by the court.
In this and other cases, if they really are frivolous will the judge not award all the costs against the plaintiff? That would seem to me to be the perfect solution.
Not so much that your costs will be awarded, but that you’ll ever be able to collect. If you’re representing yourself, will the plaintiff honor that judgment and pay your costs? I’m not holding my breath for that $350 mentioned earlier. It would cost about as much to try and [del]beat it out of them[/del] collect it. What counts is I have something from a judge saying I won, or more accurately, that their claim is without merit. I just look at the $350 as a good investment that saved me from paying someone $9,000. They were looking for low-hanging fruit, but found out I was not very juicy.
If you have an attorney, you’ll have substantially higher costs, and there’s still the chance that the defeated plaintiff won’t pay. The attorney will probably be in a better position to collect, or even aim a collection agency against them, but no guarantee.
It’s been my experience that people that launch frivolous lawsuits, or worse, are vexatious litigants, have no readily collectable assets. The last VL I dealt with was living in Section 8 housing on a fixed income. Suing people was a perverse hobby for them, and because of their low/no income status, they were able to qualify for free filing and service.
This is what is wrong with the system, you don’t have to be right, all you do is have to have deeper pockets than the guy who is suing you.
Where I work we have what we call “a thousand dollar deductable” for claims against our store. If a customer has a complaint we pay it out if it’s a thousand or less, no matter how stupid, because our company lawyers will charge us one thousand dollars to defend something brought in court. So even if we win, we lose.
I work in accounting and if a customer does a chargeback, (disputes the credit card charge) even if we are proven RIGHT, the credit card company charges us $15.00. So if a customer says “Well if you don’t give me what I want I will do a charge back, if the amount is under $15.00 we give it to them” It’s the same sort of thing.
I asked our attorney and he did say in case of a truly frivoulous lawsuit you can sue that person or counter-sue to recoup your filing and lawyer fees. BUT and here’s the big but, it has to be truly frivolous and the judge decides whether or not the claim was “made in good faith” and that can vary from judge to judge or even the daily mood of the judge.
Well, one man’s “frivolous” is another’s “innovative” or even “clever.” What looks manifestly bogus to you may seem halfway plausible to someone else. As noted above, any lawsuit, if ignored, will probably result in a default judgment being granted against you. The only exceptions in our court are a) if the plaintiff also fails to show up in court (don’t count on it), and b) if the claim is so obviously farcical that the judge or magistrate will dismiss it sua sponte even in your absence (again, don’t count on it).
Typically the losing party pays court costs in cases here. If you have attorney fees, though, you’ll probably have to file a supplemental affidavit explaining how much and why the fees were incurred.
