A query to the SDMB JDs. Given the events of the Schiavo case, and noting that approximately 30 different appeals have been denied, is there a juncture at which the Schindlers or their attorney(s) approach barratry?
Are there any cases even remotely similar with respect to the volume of appellate arguments filed, and if so, how were they handled?
What’s “barratry?”
If they haven’t already crossed the line, there is no line.
Apparently the legal branch of the culture of life feels no obligation to think about the kitties, and no one has the will to make them think about the kitties.
Why is this in the PIT?
Given the strong personal opinions attached to the subject, I started the thread in the Pit, rather than have it moved there should vitriol ensue.
Is that fucking OK with you? 
barratry
The offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.
An unlawful breach of duty on the part of a ship’s master or crew resulting in injury to the ship’s owner.
Sale or purchase of positions in church or state.
Going out on a limb here, but my bet is that definition #1 is being discussed 
Well done!
Now we’re in the pit…
Yeah, you’re probably right. It just seemed too good a question to preemptively consign to the fires.
No…you should put it in the proper forum to begin with. I’m gonna move it to GQ.
Lynn
For the Straight Dope
IANA lawyer, but my understanding is that barratry usually refers to the filing of lawsuits for the purpose of annoying someone. The Schindlers have filed a lot of suits, but they’re not doing it just to annoy Michael Schiavo (although I’m sure he is annoyed). The courts are reluctant to limit someone’s right to sue.
For example, suppose I hated my neighbor and filed a new suit once a week: first claiming they made too much noise, then claiming their trees are too tall and block my view, then claiming their fence was on my property, then claiming bad smells come from their house, etc. Suppose there was no basis in fact to any of these suits - that I am just trying to annoy my neighbor by making him show up in court. That would be barratry, and eventually the court would tell me to cut it out.
This isn’t what the Schindlers are doing. It’s true that they’ve filed a lot of suits, and that most of them have been on flimsy grounds. But they are exploring every legal angle they and their lawyers can think of to try to achieve a goal which they view as legitimate. While I personally disagree with their point of view, I wouldn’t want to limit their ability to use the courts in a case like this.
Think of the difference between, say, espousing an unpopular point of view in Great Debates, and arrant trollery.
You’re entitled to have an opinion most other people consider stupid, and to express it honestly, defending it as best you can. You’re not entitled to, so to speak, start fires to watch the commotion.
Barratry in the lawsuit sense is more or less equivalent to legal trollery – creating frivolous cases in order to be irritating and provocative. Taking a position which is legally defensible, even if not supported by the majority of the evidence, because it’s what you truly believe, is not barratry – especially if there is something as precious as a life at stake.
From the Schindlers’ perspective, what’s being sought is the legal manslaughter of a daughter that they refuse to accept is permanently in a vegetative state. We may agree that they seem to be grasping at straws, but it’s an honestly held position.
Only when it became evident that they are filing lawsuits frivolously, with no hope or intent of eventual victory, would they be committing barratry.
I understand and respect what you’re saying Polycarp and in no way wish to disrespect the position the Schindlers have assumed. From where I sit, they are presenting the same argument to the same judicial bodies, over and over, said bodies having denied their argument previously, which I thought met the definition of barratry.
So, what happens if a court rules that someone is guilty of barratry? I’m sure they’d prevent the filing of further lawsuits, but would that block be narrowly defined enough to allow the person to file a suit just different enough to get around it?
No disrespect to those who have posted, I was hoping that Bricker, Billdo or another legal mind would lend their opinion.
I don’t think they are presenting exactly the same arguments. Most judges are not at all hesitant about cutting short repetitious arguments.
Sometimes it takes the form of an injunction compelling the barrat-boy to inform all future judges of his lawsuit-happy past, presumably so they’ll give him the treatment he deserves and kick his latest masturbatory exercise before it can further spooje-ify the gears of justice.
Ah. So it’s the same old same old with a nip and a tuck sufficient to make it different from the one which preceded it, even though the substance of the issue remains unchanged, yes?
I’m not a lawyer, however I think that a difference has to material enough so as to possibly result in a different outcome and I suspect judges have pretty much seen all of the dodges.
Even in the law it probably isn’t all that easy to beat someone at his own game.
I haven’t followed the case as closely as some, but from where I sit, that’s not at all what they’re doing. They pursued their appeals and lost. Then Congress changed the law. Making the same arguments under a new legal regime is not barratry at all, because under the new law the same original position may lead to a substantially different putcome. (By analogy, claiming barratry here would be the same as claiming that if you’ve solved y=X+1 when X=3, that you already have the answer for y=X+2 when X=3, because X hasn’t changed. It doesn’t matter – the equation has changed, i.e., the rules by which particular facts lead to a decision have changed.)
–Cliffy
