Can a lawyer take a ridiculous case? The situation: A wants to sue B for some money. The reason why B should pay the money is totally ridiculous. Any judge seeing it would just laugh and send A home. But A goes to a lawyer, who tells A that taking this to court has zero chance winning, and A will only be throwing their money away. But A insists on taking the case to court. Can the lawyer get into any trouble for taking the case and bringing it to court? (Mostly interested in the UK and USA). PS. What caused me to ask was a story on another website: A company hires a public speaker. The contract says that if the company cancels with less than two days notice, they have to pay (quite reasonable). The public speaker cancels with less than two days notice and somehow imagines that he is owed money. No other motive, he wants his money and thinks he deserves it.
In the US, there are many possible sanctions A frivolous case, or pattern of cases, can result in a number of punishments: Paying the other side's legal fees -- Mind you, in the U.S, it is normal for each party to pay their own fees, and that will happen in &quot;honest disagreement&quot; type cases in which both parties have a valid perspective. &quot;Loser pays&quot; only happens when a) the loser has filed a ridiculous lawsuit, or greatly burdened the other side with frivolous filings; and b) the winner asks for fees. Transferring other costs to the plaintiff as the court sees fit. Again, winner must ask. Barring a plaintiff from filing future cases, without advance permission from the court. Again, winner must ask! Barring attorneys or firms from practicing in certain areas of law. Disbarment of the attorneys. That is decided by the state's Bar Association, typically a nonprofit trade association who in effect regulates lawyers in this manner. For instance, California is one of only four states allowing cash awards for ADA violations. A clever person named Mr. Molski went around to different restaurants and checked their bathrooms for ADA compliance. If a toilet paper roll was 1/2&quot; out of position from where ADA required, Molski would take notes. Molski checked dozens of restaurants every day, and passed these notes onto a San Francisco law office. The law office filed hundreds if not thousands of these lawsuits against the various restaurants. The lawsuits all claimed that Molski was injured as a result of the ADA noncompliance. Mind you, this was in the age before easy merging of databases and MS-Word documents. Since these hundreds of cases were so similar, they simply made Xerox copies of the relevant paperwork, only leaving a few fields blank to be typed in by hand. To reduce secretarial workload, they didn't bother customizing the date of injury: so all cases claimed Molski was injured on the same day. Hundreds of defendants simply settled for amounts in the $5000 range (about half the cost of hiring a lawyer to grind through a trial). However, one defendant, a Chinese restaurant, fought. Their counsel discovered the hundreds of other same cases, and pointed out to the court that Molski was claiming to have suffered the same injury at dozens of restaurants on the same day. What an unlucky fellow! The defendant then claimed Molski and attorneys were Vexatious Litigants, and the court wholeheartedly agreed. Molski was barred for life from filing any lawsuit without advance court approval (in which Molski would need to show a body of evidence to the court that yeah, a real and valid case was there). The law firm was barred for life from filing any ADA related cases. The law firm folded up, and is no more. The lawyers involved in the case quit practicing law. Then we have Righthaven, who purchased from newspapers the &quot;right to sue and collect damages&quot; for copyright violations. Many bulletin boards, chatrooms, forums and Q&amp;A sites allow/rely on &quot;User Generated Content&quot; (UGC), such as this here answer. They used search engines to find forums where users had copy-pasted newspaper articles. Generally, forums are protected from user behavior by the DMCA. Then, like Molski, they sued the forums, offering a settlement number below the cost of litigation itself. Again, hundreds paid; but a few fought on principle, with support from EFF. Again, Righthaven got destroyed in court - the right to sue cannot be sold. Courts ordered them to pay their victims' legal fees, bankrupting the operation. Prenda tried a similar thing against people who BitTorrent porn. I was in a case where we asked for fees. I got them, with such ease that I am kicking myself for not asking that the plaintiff be declared a vexatious litigant (which would have saved many others from this person). Further, the judge laid a heavy hint to the 3 other co-parties that if they asked for fees, they'd get them too. They did not ask. Amusingly, one of the lawyers who should have asked, was unable to collect from the client. Should have asked...
Admission of copying proves one of the elements that the plaintiffs would normally need to prove in an infringement suit, making a law suit less risky from their perspective. This may very well invite lawsuits that would otherwise not be filed. But, this is pure speculation. Your legal rights are the same, independent of how much you choose to reveal in advance of a lawsuit. If your copying doesn't amount to a substantial taking, then it isn't infringement, whether you admit to copying or not.
The real question is do they have to refund the rest of the summer camp fees if Bob is expelled due to his own intentional misbehavior? Not if the contract was written by a good lawyer, or even by a merely competent lawyer. In that case, the contract will provide that there is to be no refund in the event of expulsion.
Yes it is kind of possible what country would the legal action need to originate from? Would one file in the US and note the foreign defendant or would one file, as a foreigner, in the home country of the defendant? You can go either way. It is not obtaining the judgment that is the biggest trouble here, but enforcing it. You will need: A UK mailing address. Services like ScanMyPost will suffice. Some money to pay the court fees. Time, tenacity and patience to follow through the procedure and fill all necessary forms. Be lucky in that the defendant actually has something to pay the debt with. There are two stages: Obtain a court judgment in your favour. Unless the defendant pays you, enforce the judgment. Obtaining court judgment in the UK In the UK, the "small claims court" functions are executed by HM Courts &amp; Tribunals Service. The specific service is called "Claim for money" which can be filed online via their old or new system. So, basically, you file the online form, pay the fee by credit card and wait for defendant's response. If they do not respond, you ask the court to make a judgment (in my case it took 10 weeks from filing claim to getting judgment). If the defendant responds and defends themselves, expect much longer wait and uncertain outcome. Enforcement So, you and the defendant have both received court judgment saying that they must pay you. But they are not paying. There is a range of options you can choose from: County Court Warrant of Control (claims from £50 to £5,000). Court bailiff will go to the defendant's address and try to seize goods that can be easily sold. High Court Writ of Control (claims from £600). Attachment of earnings order (you ask the court to order the defendant's employer to deduct his earnings in your favour). Third-party debt order (a.k.a. "Garnishee Order") — if you know the defendant's bank account details. Read about potential pitfalls here. Charging order: you will only get paid if the defendant sells their land. Bankrupt the defendant (big court fees!). Alternatively, you could always hire a UK lawyer but then you would probably not need this answer.
Civil cases are frequently decided by arbitration (a non-court process), so there's nothing particularly problematic here. Both parties have to agree to participate in the process, and one may (but need not) assume that there is a clause that the losing party has to live with the outcome. Odds are good that the parties are paid to participate, so there would be incentive to accept the verdict. One difference between this show (apparently) and a normal binding arbitration clause is that with the latter, this is part of the original contract which would state that all disputes must be resolved by such-and-such arbitration firm. Such verdicts are generally enforceable, unless there is some extreme impropriety (e.g. the defendant bribes the arbitration firm to flagrantly overlook the law). In the present case, torts as well as contracts can be the subject of a show, and the arbitration agreement would be separate from and after any underlying contract. A lot depends on the agreement that the show has participants sign. The Facebook-jury would, of course, not pass any form of scrutiny in a real court. So it is possible that afterwards, an unhappy party can press the case in real court, without prejudice.
If you used some creative work of mine without my permission (I'm the copyright holder, and you have no license giving you permission) then I can sue you to make you stop using my work, to get payment for damages, and to get payment for statutory damages. If you used my work because someone else told you wrongly that you had a license, that's very unfortunate for you, but is no reason why I wouldn't or shouldn't sue you. Obviously in this situation that third party did something badly wrong. I can sue both of you together to make sure that I get payment from whoever has deeper pockets. You can also sue that third party if you think that their lying, or being mistaken, about a non-existing license caused you damages, or if there is a contract or something that makes them responsible.
The amount requested has little or nothing to do with the amount, if any, eventually awarded. Once can sue "for 100 million dollars" and be awarded 100 dollars, and although it is rarer, one can be awarded more than the amount asked for when suit is field. That initial amount now serves as a peg to hang sensational news stores on, and nothing more. The plaintiff, and the plaintiff's lawyer, may consider that such publicity serves them well. Such inflated amounts are not grounds to dismiss the suit, so there is no downside to including them, except possibly negative publicity if people mock the demand.
Based solely on what you've described, what the lawyer did is inappropriate if, in fact, it occurred without any prior permissions. However, since you are not the actual client, it may be that you lack pertinent info, because this would be exceedingly rare behavior. Lawyers are allowed to make procedural and "expert"/professional decisions about your case without your consent, and do so all the time. As a general rule: we decide who to depose, what expert(s) are necessary to prove your claim, what questions to ask in discovery, what to say and when to say it when attempting to settle, and what witnesses to call vs. not to call at panel or trial. All of that is in the purview of the attorney's general discretion and work product. However, attorneys cannot diminish, amend, or settle your claim without your permission, unless you've signed a limited representation agreement and/or a prior authorization to do these things with a waiver of consultation on issues relating to settlement. (It is not uncommon for a client to say, "My bottom line is X; hence, you have my permission to settle the case for anything over that amount.") A client may also, subsequently, give verbal consent, saying things like "just do your best and get what you can". Contingency and Total Award Strategies Since you aren't the one having entered into the contract, you may not be privy to the existence of these types of contingencies. Agreements like this are very common when an attorney takes a weaker med mal claim. It may be that the lawyer will only take the case to the extent that they will try to settle, and may even file the case, with the understanding that they will never try the case. It is a way to try to get you as much as possible when all facts come to light, without agreeing to the expense of a trial. This happens a lot. In these situations, when you are trying to settle a claim that ends up being much less valuable than the attorney thought when he took the case, the insurance carrier will often say, "We will pay X on the claim if Doctor Doe is dismissed out," or something like that. Often lawyers intentionally over-file, in hopes there are two carriers (the more insurance the more money to make you go away) that they can try to settle with. When it turns out both docs are covered under one insurance carrier, then the weaker claim will often get dismissed out. It is a strategic decision to add them, and to dismiss them &ndash; and this is very common. Proving malpractice against one doctor is hard enough; trying to prove that you are the victim of double malpractice, back to back, is nearly impossible. All of that said, even if a client has entered into these types of limited or decisional authority-granting agreements, the lawyer still has a duty to keep the client apprised of what's going on. The client may decide later they don't like how little the attorney is stating the claim is worth (despite being forewarned this may happen, it happens all the time that when it actually occurs the client is not happy). In that case, they have the right to find a new lawyer, but that will be very difficult to do for a few reasons: (1) the original attorney is entitled to get paid for the work done under a theory known as “quantum meruit,” so other attorneys will be hesitant to get involved; (2) they will put a lien on any recovery for the amount of time and expenses, to be paid from any settlements or awards (and they get paid first, before the client or the new lawyer); (3) if a client gets angry and says they want to just drop the case rather than have the lawyer make more than the client, even after a year or more of work, all of the costs will still be owed by the client; (4) the potential new attorney will call the one who has the case and ask about whether the client has unreasonable expectations, if their case has any value, etc. Keep mind, if an attorney is doing the things you've described, they probably would suffer no love loss if the case went away. Malpractice in Context It very often happens, especially in medical malpractice cases, that a client will come in and describe the case one way, and then when the medical records arrive and the attorney and/or the paralegal/nurse-para review them, and all the facts get flushed out, it turns out things occurred a bit (or a lot) differently than the client described or recalled in the first place. This is typically not a matter, 99% of the time, of the client lying to the attorney, but rather it is merely the phenomenon of memories being based on their perception of the events/their care, rather than verifiable fact and established medical standards. (This is why eye-witness testimony is so notably unreliable: 10 people can witness the same event and there will inevitably be 10 different descriptions.) One thing all clients should be told by their lawyer (and you should only hire an experienced medical malpractice lawyer for these cases) is that bad outcomes do not equal negligence. Lay people often think that if something bad occurred while under the care of a doctor, this is the case, but it is not the measure of malpractice. Sometimes, even when the doctor does everything according to their specialty/industry standard, bad outcomes happen. Malpractice/negligence only occurs when they have deviated from this standard of care - outcome notwithstanding. The inverse is also true, when it comes to a bad outcome. The doctor may have breached the standard of care, but this cannot be determined by the patient - the law requires expert testimony to establish this. Sometimes bad outcomes are just the risk of the procedure. This is why patients sign (but rarely read) the informed consent forms, that describe in detail, and state the patient is aware, of all the potential bad outcomes that may occur during the procedure. Negligence, or a "breach of the standard of care" occurs when the typical physician (not the best expert in the world, just the normal, typical doctor in that field) would have found the actions to be unreasonable and never acceptable given the totality of the circumstances. Once you prove that, you then still need to prove that is what caused your damages (not the disease, or the ailment itself). Unfortunately, even with the best physicians, bad outcomes happen all the time. It is very common, to the point of being almost predictable, that a medical malpractice claim's value will depart from the original ballpark estimate of value that an attorney tries to "best guess" at the outset. When your attorney tries to value a case, they roughly estimate your "special damages", which consists of medical bills, lost income, lost earning capacity, and other quantifiable sums. Then, they must try to assess the market rate award for pain and suffering for the type injury you've sustained. This is only guesswork, based on jury verdict reports, reported settlements, and the jurisdictional leanings toward large or small verdicts (comparatively). As the case evolves, as facts come to lights, as experts are consulted - this is when these estimates can largely deviate from the original guesstimate based on very limited information. Risks of Contingency Representation At any rate, when a lawyer takes a case on contingency (when they agreed to get paid only if they recover, and not until they recover, aside from out of pocket expenses), they do this because they've relied on the client's account of what happened, as well as their initial assessment of the records, usually prior to hiring an expert (if they even intended to hire one because they agreed to take the case all the way through trial). You must understand that attorneys don't like when a case loses value any more than the client; in fact, probably less as they are the ones who've invested often hundreds of hours in the case at that point. This is how they make their money. Thirty-three percent of a small amount is not the same as that of a large amount. And many, many hours go into these cases. An attorney can make far more than their hourly rate on a great case, but this is balanced by making far, far less on cases whose values plummet as facts come to light. When a case appears to lost much of it's initially estimated value, the attorney will still try to maximize recovery; however, it may not seem that way to the client because after they take their third, and then recoup their expenses (which is on top of the third and is the responsibility of the client win-or-lose), clients can end up with almost nothing. This is because the expense of these cases is enormous and it is the problem with that area of law and the system in general. It is not uncommon for a medical malpractice case to cost, out of pocket, $200,000 or more! This is why so few people are able to get a lawyer to take these cases, and often when they do, it's on the very limited basis I described. Med Malpractice Primer Med Mal cases are some of the hardest cases to win and they are by far some of the most expensive cases to try. This in not accidental. Depending on the state you live in, tort reform (a legislative effort to limit the amount of medical malpractice claims filed and tried overall, as well as limiting their total recovery) can range from limits on damages, to very short windows for statute of limitations, to the requirements (like where I practice) where you must literally try the case twice &ndash; once before a med mal screening panel, who hears all your witnesses just as a jury does, and then decides whether the case should (and in some cases can) go forward. In some states (I happen to practice in one) the findings are admissible in court (not the evidence but the finding). So, if the MMPT screening panel finds the doctor was not negligent, or was, but the damages were within the standard disclosed potential outcomes, so there was no causation, or myriad other things, if you decide (or in some states, if you even still get to go to court) the defense gets to say to the jury that the legislatively enacted Med Mal Pre-trial screening panel found X (no negligence, causation, or damages &ndash; or all three). These panels are usually comprised of a lawyer (75% defense lawyers) or a judge, and two doctors who are biased against these types of cases in the first place). Also, if your expert gets torn apart on an issue during panel phase, anything they admit can be used against them in the trial. I say all this to help you understand that these cases are made, by the legislature, to be very hard to even find a lawyer to take, very hard to win, and exceedingly expensive to litigate. This is based on the (fallacious) theory that medical malpractice claims should be limited to the most serious claims because this litigation is so costly, and so impactful on the rates all citizens pay for insurance, that the legislature has seen fit to make them very difficult to prosecute, thereby weeding out weak claims. Bottom Line If the client truly feels their lawyer did something they did not have permission (either explicitly in writing, or verbally) to do, they need to talk to the attorney, explain their discomfort with the situation, and figure out why it occurred and if it was truly in the best interest of the case and the client. If the lawyer cannot adequately answer those questions, they should get a second opinion. The client can demand that anything the attorney did be undone, if it was the type of thing that is in the client's control. One would need to see the engagement letter and retention agreement, and also be privy to the conversations. It is, unfortunately, not uncommon for a client to say they understand what the lawyer is proposing when they don't. If you find that's the case, you may have them ask that all determinations be put in writing, with an explanation as to why.