Anyone can sue. Does that mean that everyone can sue. If the word gets out that I drove Mary to an abortion clinic in New Mexico, can each and every neighbor sue me for the $10k prize? Or is it first-come, first-served? Who gets the $10k if I’m sued by multiple people? If only one person can sue me, can I pre-arrange for my nephew Harold to bring the first suit?
First, we’ve discussed in other threads about how the plain text of the law pretty clearly doesn’t allow a suit for taking her out of state.
Next:
(c) Notwithstanding Subsection (b), a court may not award
relief under this section in response to a violation of Subsection
(a)(1) or (2) if the defendant demonstrates that the defendant
previously paid the full amount of statutory damages under
Subsection (b)(2) in a previous action for that particular abortion
performed or induced in violation of this subchapter, or for the
particular conduct that aided or abetted an abortion performed or
induced in violation of this subchapter.
So if you show that in a prior suit you paid someone else the “full amount” of statutory damages for that abortion, then you cannot be sued again (“no relief”).
If you arrange a friendly suit and the judge finds out about it, expect to have your ass handed to you, under this or any other law.
Also, this use of “prize” or “vigilante” is an insult to the legal system even if you disagree with this particular law. This is a duly authorized court of one of the 50 sovereign United States, not a pirate on the high seas.
And most pirates on the high seas were also duly authorized by sovereign nations.
It may be wrong to castigate a court for enforcing a law as written but we can certainly characterize laws passed with disparaging language. All sorts of terrible laws have been passed over the years. Do you want examples?
If that is an insult to the legal system then it is well deserved. There is nothing magical about a law that places it on a pedestal never to be questioned or mocked.
Well, i guess we will find out what it actually does:
AUSTIN, Texas—A Texas doctor who publicly said he performed an abortion was sued Monday in state court by two different plaintiffs, handing Texas the first tests of its new abortion law.
…
A former Arkansas lawyer, Oscar Stilley, who said he is on home confinement serving time after a tax-fraud conviction, filed a civil complaint against the doctor Monday in Bexar County District Court. He said he decided to sue the doctor after he read about the case early Monday morning and wanted to test the Texas law.“The doctor is going to get sued,” Mr. Stilley said.
…
“Someone is going to get $10,000 off him. If that’s the law, I may as well get the money. If it’s not the law, let’s go to court and get it sorted out.”
In a separate lawsuit, Felipe N. Gomez, an Illinois resident who is described in his filing as a “pro choice plaintiff” filed a complaint Monday morning in Bexar County. While the complaint is against Dr. Braid, it says Mr. Gomez believes the Texas law to be illegal and asks a court to strike it down. He said that he wasn’t interested in collecting any money.
The second plaintiff says he is also against wearing a mask and mandatory vaccines and thinks the law is inconsistent.
Ooh I love that the first two litigants aren’t actual anti-abortionists.
Is there precedent for this? I’m not sure what the legal mechanism would be for handing a defendant their ass because they made an agreement for the plaintiff to sue them. Are you saying it would be fraudulent? If so, how?
It is actually a criminal law - which is what creates the offense (contributing to an abortion) that someone can sue over. It just also allows civil lawsuits over the act for aiding an illegal abortion that does not require the suing party to demonstrate they have personally been hurt.
The crux of the issue is - if the Roe v Wade decision says abortion is legal, how can a state law make it illegal? Courts have so far refused to injunction this law. It will be months before any actual judgement on the law may happen.
The law IIRC specifically states the person being sued cannot collect legal costs, and the person doing the suing can collect legal costs, whether they win or lose. It will be intresting to see how this holds up in a test case.
I recall reading about a somewhat similar case in northern California. Plaintiff got a possibly fictitious defendant to go to court in a lawsuit over illegally download movies. The plaintiff (obviously) wins, gets a big judgement which the defendant does not pay, and then threatens many others over downloads with the intent that any other court will match the award for the first lawsuit. I believe the lawyer was facing serious questions and likely sanctions when this was exposed.
This is fraud. A lawsuit is for a real dispute. By creating a fictitious dispute the lawyers are lying to the court, by alleging a disagreement of facts that are not true.
The Prenda Law epic.
Sounds like they were engaged in a lot more wrongdoing than what is being discussed here.
Ordinarily, yes. But this law exists for the purpose of enabling lawsuits where there is no real dispute.
Yes. It seems to be an invitation to vexatious litigation.
Perhaps the feds should pass a similar law allowing anyone in the world to sue a business which allows unvaccinated people indoors without masks in violation of health department mandates, automatic award of attorneys fees and a minimum damages, and see how long that stays un-injunctioned.
Doesn’t this happen all the time?
Finding people to “test” a law is a time-honored tradition and goes back to at least the civil rights era (IIRC Rosa Parks was “chosen” to intentionally break the law as a test case and I don’t think anyone really pretended otherwise).
Then you have the likes of Peter Thiel, the billionaire who was pissed at Gawker for something they wrote so he paid for Hulk Hogan’s lawsuit which ultimately destroyed Gawker. Thiel had no stake in the Hogan lawsuit.
Or you have the Texas law firm that brought breast implant lawsuits. They fought against a class action and, instead, brought dozens of individual lawsuits against breast implant makers. They lost over and over and over again. Then they won one lawsuit and made a fortune. With that the floodgates opened and it was a massive payday for them
Where is the line drawn?
The difference is that that was not a faux dispute. Rosa Parks really did believe that the bus segregation law was unconstitutional. The fact that she deliberately broke the law in order to get into court to make a test case is not fraud, but the very reason to use the court system.
The better analogy would be if you found a black person who believed that segregation was fully proper and good, violates the law, goes to court and pretends that he doesn’t like the segregation law, and then deliberately make a poor argument so that the segregation law is upheld, thereby setting precedent that segregation is okay. That is fraud on the court and on future litigants.
It is a “real” dispute. You and I may disagree that it is a proper dispute for a court of law, but it is a dispute.
The plaintiff is alleging that the defendant aided or abetted in an abortion where a heartbeat was detected or able to be detected. The defendant admits, pays and stops doing it. The defendant shows that he didn’t do it. The defendant challenges the cause of action on constitutional grounds.
How is it not a dispute?
And presumably, many of the people involved in “faux disputes” under this law would likewise think that the Texas law is unconstitutional.
And that’s fine, but they just cannot be plaintiffs in these cases. If you think the law is unconstitutional, then you don’t add to the unconstitutionality by bringing an abortion doctor into court under the authority of the very law you think is unconstitutional.
Sure they can. This law lays out very clearly who can be plaintiffs, namely, everyone.
You’re not following the give and take of the thread. Yes, anyone can be a plaintiff. But, the very definition of plaintiff means that you have a beef with a defendant and you want a particular remedy that a court can provide under the law.
For example, the law says that I can be a plaintiff and sue my neighbor for battery. But that very fact doesn’t mean that it excuses the requirement that I truthfully claim that my neighbor battered me and want the court to do something about it, namely give me money.
Likewise, under this law, anyone can be a plaintiff. But by definition, they then must desire that the court: 1) issue an injunction against the defendant to stop performing/aiding and abetting these abortions, 2) award them a minimum of $10k, and 3) pay their costs and fees.
If they are pro-choice and think that a doctor should constitutionally be able to continue performing these abortions, then they are committing a fraud on the court by filing a complaint and asking the court to make the doctor stop performing the abortions.
Yes, this is a real dispute.
The Rosa Parks example is a real dispute. Rosa Parks and the rest did not conspire with the bus company to throw the game to assure an outcome they both intended, to favour the bus company. There’s a difference between finding a “good test case” and a fraudulent case. There was supposedly an earlier case the civil rights group chose not to pursue, because the woman in question was an unwed mother or something, and they though someone of “questionable virtue” would (in those days) make the case harder to make. Silly today, but relevant then.
The problem with the current lawsuit is “standing”. Normally, a person has to be personally injured in some way (beyond being a member of the public at large) to have a reason to sue. This is the insidious part of this law. By allowing anyone standing to sue, and then having the defendant required to pay the lawyer fees if they lose, it does what the writers intended - it scares people away from performing abortions in case they are sued into oblivion by innumerable legal bills. As a result, the law never gets its “day in court” and never actually gets tested as to whether it is constitutional.
Indeed, the news today is that anti-abortion groups in Texas are upset with the current lawsuits, call them bogus and unproductive. Why? Because now the law will actually produce a real court case, and the law can be challenged in an actual court case over whether granting a person standing to sue when they should normally have none is a step too far for the legal system. If that is the result, then nobody except the people who are affected by the abortion - the patient, presumably - could validly sue the doctor, receptionist, Uber driver, etc. Or, the court could decide that the law enables the lawsuit by making abortion at 6 weeks illegal, which contradicts Roe v Wade and so the law is not valid. OR… who knows what other grounds.
The law relied on the chill of the uncertainty.