It seemed to me that Paul Ryan was using the term “litigate” to mean “discuss” when talking about his meeting with Donald Trump. Is Paul Ryan using the term correctly?
I look forward to your feedback.
He used the term “litigate” fiirst 3 min: 8 sec into and then again 3 min: 27 sec into the video. He seems to use it in the sense of “discuss”. Can the term “litigate” be used this way?
He means it in the sense of negotiate, or argue out. It’s legitimate figurative usage of the word.
I haven’t watched the vidoe. But . . .
“Litigate” as a figurative synonym for “negotiate”? I’m not seeing it. Litigation is what you do when you won’t negotiate, or when you have tried negotiating but it didn’t work.
I’m not saying that Ryan couldn’t use the term in the sense suggested, but doing so seem likely to cause confusion. (As the existence of this thread attests.)
Litigate literally means argue in court. To use it descriptively for arguing out of court shouldn’t be confusing to anyone who can think past literal definitions. If you think negotiate doesn’t work then how about arbitrate?
Dictionary.com lists an archaic definition meaning to dispute. It looks like the only current definition assumes that that the dispute is happening in court.
I could also see a lawyer thinking that your preliminary discussions on an issue would be part of the “litigation” even if you haven’t filed a lawsuit or shown up in court just yet. (And if Ryan is talking about a discussion with Trump… well, it’s just a matter of time until Trump either gets his way or sues someone, right?)
It comes from the Latin word lis meaning a lawsuit, and its original and I think still dominant sense is “to be party to a lawsuit” or “to carry on a lawsuit” (which encompasses a lot more than just arguing in court). I think it’s fundamentally different from negotiating, in that when you negotiate you are seeking to reach some kind of agreed resolution, but when you litigate you are seeking an imposed resolution that you can enforce without agreement. Which is why the two are very much alternatives.
I am a lawyer. I don’t think this. We’ll resort to litigation if our preliminary discussions don’t bear fruit. Until then, we’re not litigating; merely threatening to.
Trump: to know him is to be sued by him.
And this is why you are confused. The rest of us don’t use the word litigate that often and associate it with a specific phase of the legal process.
I think the nuance is that he means that when he litigates, he means to win over the listener (the magistrate, judge, court officer, panel, congress, committee, caucus, voter… ) not JUST win over the other party of the discussion.
Here in Australia they use the word “conversation” and introduce it the first time to include the idea they are having the conversation with the public, this is pretentious , and often somewhat innaccurate… the public aren’t effectively able to engage in the conversation (and if they refer to twitter, facebook,etc it starts to get tricky to say they acknowledge it was part of the conversation … where it becomes factual , obvious, that they didn’t actually engage in conversation there ? )
he might avoid using the word “argument” because it sounds like he is admitting to being emotional.
he might avoid the word “debate” because it might be thought that a debate should stick to the rules of debating, like sticking to the topic, and avoiding falacies/weasel words. he also means that its not a debate which may be judged on form not fact. (eg you can win in debating eloquently putting forward a set of facts although not personally agreeing that the set proves the case. Just like a lawyer defending a client he he is totally unconvinced as to innocence… notice I didn’t say “knows is guilty” , thats not for this thread anyway. )
Although the word litigation also might imply he is sticking to the rules of the court, which might include more or less rules,he doesn’t mean that, he means the rules of politics, which is a different set of rules which is quite complicated…
Maybe I’m misreading you, but in my view it is correctly associated with a specific phase of the legal process - viz, carrying on a lawsuit. If “the rest of us” associate the word with that phase, then that accords with my understanding. But its inconsistent with Ryan’s usage.
If what you’re saying is that “the rest of us” don’t associate the term with lawsuits and use it simply as a synonym for “argue”, “dispute” or “negotiate”, all I can say is that I’ve never heard the word “litigate” used by anyone, lawyer or non-lawyer, to mean anything but “carry on a lawsuit”. Neither, evidently, has the OP. “Litigation” is the conduct of adversarial legal proceedings. “Litigious” is a term for someone with a high propensity to issue legal proceedings (like Donald Trump). “Litigant” is a party to legal proceedings. And so forth.
But maybe this is an AmE thing.
I agree with that interpretation. The word “litigate” suggests that a dispute exists between the two, and that both of them are ultimately subject to the authority of someone else (party officials, voters) who will choose the winner. For Ryan himself, it’s a gesture of humility. To Trump, it’s a statement that “you don’t personally have this power yet”.
This is exactly what Ryan said:
“In 45 minutes, you don’t litigate all the processes, and all the issues and principles that we are talking about”
“No offense, but I don’t want to litigate our issues through the media”
and on more time
6 min: 27 sec
“I’m not interested in litigating the past”
Right. Interesting that those are all negative references. Litigation, whether actual or figurative, is something he presents himself as trying to avoid. What he’s trying to suggest, maybe, is that arguing with Trump about points of difference, and in particular arguing in public or arguing about things that cannot be changed (like the past), is tantamount to litigating over them - i.e. it’s time-consuming, expensive and destructive. A second sub-text, perhaps, is “I’m not like Donald Trump - the notorious litigator. We have differences, but I want to resolve them co-operatively, rather than in a litigious manner (which would be Trump’s instinct).”
Thanks UDS. Your point about avoiding “litigation”(disputing/arguing out) because “it’s time-consuming, expensive and destructive” makes sense. I’m not sure I agree with your second point on his use of “litigating” necessarily having a subtext. It is possible that in the fishbowl that DC politicians are in, certain expressions become commonplace among them and that they take these expressions as being readily understood by outsiders.
This is usually how I hear it used.
I actually think I hear it more as *re-*litigating. It implies that there was a previous fight over the issue in question that was far more toxic than the issue merited, so it’s certainly not worth opening it up a second time, even if the current situation is not the best.
On the American Bar Association web site is an article called:
Ethical Rules for Litigating in the Court of Public Opinion
I understand that author of this article won some prestigious awards for writing it.
But neither the Constitution nor Congress has ever created a Court of Public Opinion. The President has never nominated a judge to sit on this court and the Senate has never confirmed an appointment. And, to the best of my knowledge, no state constitution nor any state legislature has created such a court.
But, here we go: A lawyers’ professional organization is using “litigate” in a figurative sense. It’s probably not an unheard of usage.
Just chiming in to say that while I easily understood from context what Ryan meant, I also thought it was a very odd usage of the word. IANAL.
No. I’m not a lawyer, and I’ve never heard “litigation” used as a synonym for “negotiation” – I have only heard it used in terms of legal proceedings.
I feel confident the rest of the world is with me on this. 
I’m not saying it’s common usage, but I have heard it used this way. Usually in the negative the way Ryan used it, to say you couldn’t litigate something, with the context being out of court. As a non-lawyer do you see litigation as some specific phase of the legal process, or just the process of going to court? Just as Friedo understood what it meant so would most people I think, even if they hadn’t heard it used that way before.