What are some remedies for a poor person if a petty rich guy buries him with frivolous lawsuits? A poor, jobless person made a careless remark about a rich and petty person. The rich person gets to know about it and sues the poor person for defamation. Does the poor person need to hire a lawyer to defend himself against the lawsuit? Lawyers charge by the hour. The poor person can hardly afford lawyers. What are some cost-effective remedies a poor person can take if a petty rich person buries his poor victim with frivolous lawsuits? Answers in the context of U.K, U.S, Australia are welcomed.
Such a lawsuit is known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation, or SLAPP. In the United States, several states have enacted laws that penalize those whose file SLAPPs. The provisions of these laws vary from state to state, but they usually allow a defendant to file a motion to dismiss on the grounds that their statements were constitutionally protected free speech about a public figure. These laws may allow discovery to be halted until the motion to dismiss is decided; they may also require a plaintiff who files a SLAPP to reimburse the defendant's attorney's fees, possibly also with punitive damages. Some state's laws require the speech to be before a government forum (as opposed to, say, on Twitter), or to be aimed at procuring government action. And several states have no such laws at all. A summary of various US states' anti-SLAPP laws can be found on the website of the Public Participation Project, an organization advocating the establishment of such laws. Note that these motions to dismiss are not always brought by "the little guy" against "the big guy". A notable recent case was Stormy Daniels's libel suit against Donald Trump, which was dismissed earlier this year. Daniels had filed suit against Trump claiming that one of Trump's tweets about her was defamatory. Trump moved to dismiss under Texas's anti-SLAPP law, on the grounds that his tweet was protected political speech about a public figure (namely Daniels); and the judge agreed.
Alice files a lawsuit against Bob This is a civil suit, it will not lead to any court punishing Alice, or anyone else. If facts come out showing that Alice violated the law, the local prosecutor could, but need not, file a criminal case against Alice. If the prosecutor does not file such a case, Alice's worst possible outcome is to get no damages, with costs and fees awarded to Bob (or his estate). If Bob dies and Alice wishes to drop the case, there is no obvious reason not to permit it, unless Bob or his estate has counter-sued. Bob (or his estate) might ask for costs and legal fees, and perhaps sanctions for a frivolous suit. The court might well asses whether to grand such a costs order before or as it dismisses the case. ; The question seems to confuse the idea of a civil lawsuit and that of a criminal prosecution. In an Civil lawsuit, one person (or company) (the plaintiff) claims that another (or several others) (the defendant) have violated an agreement, or have in some other way caused legal injury. For example, if Alice claims that she had a contract with Bob and Bob violated the terms that would be a civil suit. Or if Alice claims that Bob infringed her copyright, or slandered her, or falsely advertised something or any of many other possible situations. The case would be Alice C vs Bob D. However, if Alice accuses Bob of having stolen from her, or punched her, or raped her, that woulds be a criminal accusation. The police would investigate, and if they found evidence to support the accusation, the local prosecutor could (but need not) file a case, which would be something like State of Franklin vs Bob D IN THE CRIMINAL COURT. Alice would be a witness, but not the plaintiff. If the investigation found that Alice committed a crime also, the prosecutor might file, State of Franklin vs Alice C Or the prosecutor might file both cases, or neither. The prosecutor has wide discretion whether or not to prosecute in any particular case, even when the evidence is clear. Neither Alice nor Bob could insist that either criminal case be dropped. Only the prosecutor, or the Judge, could do that. A criminal court is a different court from a civil court, and in many places a given judge hears only one or the other type of case. In many other places a judge may hear both kinds, but any one case is still either civil or criminal.
https://www.mwl-law.com/how-to-sue-yourself-and-win/ Yes, and there can be cases this is profitable. You negligently killed someone in a car accident. You need to sue yourself to use your insurance. The victim is dead so their estate goes to you. So you sue yourself on the estates behalf, the estate wins, and you get the estate. Directly suing yourself is impossible however.
What happens when a person dies intestate is that the court appoints someone to be the executor. That person is supposed to settle the decedent's debts, and divide the remainder equally among the siblings. It is virtually guaranteed that the mortgage-holder will get their share – you can't just sell a house with a mortgage and run. In the meantime, the estate has to keep paying the mortgage and property taxes. The executor has wide latitude to dispose of the estate, and clearing out personal possessions is a necessary part of liquidating the estate. Those possessions being part of the estate, they &quot;count&quot;, therefore that mink coat worth $10,000 can't just be &quot;taken&quot; by the executor in order to tidy things up. But that broken weed-eater worth $1 can just be thrown away and not stored for some months, waiting for the final reckoning. The executor is entitled to compensation for his work and reimbursement for his expenses, so nickle and diming the small possessions is probably economically counterproductive. The executor has the legal power to determine how the legally required distribution is carried out, that is, the law doesn't require a majority vote of the heirs in order to dispose of each and every item of property. If there is an actual legal dispute, if you believe that the executor is improperly carrying out the job, you can hire a lawyer to have him removed, or otherwise put pressure on him to get a change in how things are. This will probably cost you more than you might get from the estate. It is possible that the real estate market will not support the current sale price and therefore a lower asking price is necessary (i.e. the executor needs a reality check). A combination real estate agent + lawyer could help you figure out what to do with the house to make it sell.
That's a sad story. The answer to your question is: Yes. If your case is attractive enough then a lawyer might agree to represent it on a contingency basis. Contact lawyers in the jurisdiction where the fraudster has a physical, business, or legal presence. In the U.S. you can ask for referrals to lawyers from the state bar association, or you can call or email them or their firms directly. However, if the amount of potential damages is too small, or the prospects of collecting them too low, then you will probably not find any lawyer interested in taking the case on contingency. If the fraudster has left many victims then you might try to pool your cases to make legal action more attractive. You also might contact the state attorneys in his jurisdictions, as they will sometimes pursue cases against serial scofflaws.
Your belief in the truth of a statement is of only limited value in a defamation suit. Saying that a person is incompetent in that person's profession can certainly be defamation, and may even be defamation per se, depending on the jurisdiction. If the person sues and the speaker asserts truth as a defense, the speaker may have to prove that the statement is true. Why would one need to say anything at all in such a situation? Whether such a statement was a factual statement or a statement of opinion would depend very much on the detailed circumstances. But it is at least possible that a suit might be filed and won on this fact pattern. See this answer for more on defamation under US law.
This is called a qui tam action. It's a concept that's been around a long time in the English legal system (predating the US), to encourage people to help the government enforce its laws. The more contemporary system is to give private parties the right to sue on their own behalf for some wrong (known as a "private attorney general" system), which is how things like civil rights claims tend to work; the difference with qui tam is that the government is the plaintiff (source) It's possible when the law says that a claim under some section may be filed by a private person on behalf of the government; at the time the article was written, the false marking statute (35 USC 292) stated that "Any person may sue for the penalty, in which event one-half shall go to the person suing and the other to the use of the United States." In a qui tam action, the government is the plaintiff; it's just that instead of a public attorney handling the case, it's handled by a private party. There were three active qui tam statutes in US federal law as of 2009 (source: CRS): the False Claims Act (31 USC 3730), the patent marking claim, and an Indian protection statute (25 USC 201). The patent marking qui tam provision has been repealed, leaving just the two. For the Indian protection statute, I can't find any reference to any special procedure; for the False Claims Act, there is a special procedure included in the law. In the False Claims Act, when an action is submitted, the government is notified and the complaint kept sealed for 60 days while the US government decides what to do. If the government wants to take over the case itself, it can do that; if it wants the private party to run the case, it can do that too; if it wants to dismiss or settle the case it can do that as well. It can also ask for the time to be extended, or for discovery to be delayed to gather evidence or prosecute a separate criminal or civil case. If the government lets the private party run the case, they can still intervene later if they have a good reason. After the case finishes, the private party gets 15-25% of the judgment or settlement (if the government took over the case) or 25-30% (if the private party ran the case), plus attorney fees. If the facts the case was brought under were publicly known when it was filed, the amount shrinks to 0-10% if the person supplied information to the government that wasn't publicly known when it was supplied, and the case is dismissed if the person just learned about it from public sources. For the false marking statute, a district court actually found it unconstitutional in part because of the lack of the extensive procedure found in the False Claims Act. There, the procedure was just to file the case like normal; the clerk had to tell the Patent Office that a claim had been filed within a month, but one issue was that a settlement could have happened in that time and bound the government. It's possible higher courts would have ruled had that section not been repealed later that year. As for other countries, the idea came to the US from England, but the Common Informers Act 1951 eliminated it there. However, private prosecutions (which do exist in England) are similar in that the case is on behalf of the Crown, but handled by a private party; they're different in that the private party doesn't get any part of the judgment. While it's hard to prove a negative, I can't find any evidence of qui tam provisions outside the US.
In general, you cannot neither change contracts nor restrict/nullify other people's rights by your acts alone. The people who hired you personally have a contract with you, not with your LLC. So, if someone has a claim against you, then their claim should not be contingent of your LLC going bankrupt or not; they have a right to have their damages restored by you (who was the entity they hired). Otherwise, fraud/liability delinquency would be trivial: get debts on your name and, when the things get difficult, create a shell LLC and let it go bankrupt.