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Frivolous LawsuitA lawsuit is termed frivolous if it is brought in spite of the fact that both the plaintiff and his lawyer knew that it had no merit and it did not argue for a reasonable extension or reinterpretation of the law or no underlying justification in fact based upon the lawyer's due diligence investigation of the case before filing (i.e. the well known U.S. Federal Rule 11). Since it wastes the court's and the other people's time, resources and legal fees, it may result in sanctions being levied by the court upon the party or the lawyer who brings the action. The standard references for legal terms--American Jurisprudence, Corpus Juris Secundum, amd Words and Phrases--contain no entry for "frivolous lawsuit" (although there are entries for "frivolous pleading" which means a pleading which is nothing more than a copy of a previous pleading, and "frivolous appeal" which means an appeal that has no chance of succeeding). In recent years, concerns about frivolous lawsuits have become a political issue, with various interests asserting that such litigation has increased the costs of goods and services, particularly in the health care industry. However, these arguments tend to misuse the term, applying it to suits in which excessive awards are reached by a jury. (In such cases, the jury didn't think it was frivolous.) Costs that are driven up by large jury verdicts can not be from frivolous lawsuits, because such suits will be discharged by the court before being considered by a jury. One area where frivolous lawsuits have been particularly burdensome on courts is in the area of in forma pauperis and pro se prison litigation. Because of the history of prisoners filing baseless suits (asserting for example, that their civil rights have been violated because they were given crunchy peanut butter instead of creamy) (note: a toothless prisoner cannot eat crunchy peanut butter), Congress passed and President Clinton signed the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which strictly limits the ability of prisoners to bring actions. Compare barratry, vexatious litigation, abuse of process and malicious prosecution. Stella Liebeck, the woman who spilled the McDonalds coffee, was 79, in the passenger seat of a stopped car, and the coffee scalded her so badly that she suffered third-degree burns and needed skin grafts. During discovery, McDonalds produced documents showing more than 700 claims from people burned by its coffee between 1982 and 1992. The judge reduced the jury award of $2.9 million in compensatory and punitive damages, and the woman settled for about $600,000. See: Professor Fairman says the "frivolous lawsuit" is a myth The Myth of Frivolous Lawsuits Myth: "Frivolous" tort cases are clogging the courts. The Fake Crisis over Lawsuits: Who's Paying to Keep the Myths Alive? Q: When is a frivolous lawsuit not frivolous? A: When it's filed by a corporation.
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