Can you sue yourself under the TX anti-abortion law? The text of Sec. 171.208. CIVIL LIABILITY FOR VIOLATION OR AIDING OR ABETTING VIOLATION. reads (emph. mine) (a) Any person, other than an officer or employee of a state or local governmental entity in this state, may bring a civil action against any person who Does this mean that you can sue yourself for intending to have an abortion, admit to the planned abortion, pay the statutory damages to yourself in 1000 terms of $10 (or in one go if that doesn't cause other issues), and then file those thousand receipts as proof that the statutory damages have been paid in full. After which any future action brought by anyone else for that specific abortion will have to be dismissed because: (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. Would this be a viable defense against this law? Can those damages be forced to be payed to anyone other than the plaintiff? Are there any other gotchas with this perceived loophole?
You'd be confessing to committing a crime. I'm not a lawyer, but I wouldn't recommend trying it. Sure, if this trick worked, you might be able to clear yourself of civil remedies, but there's a much bigger problem with this: with the repeal of Roe vs Wade, Texas once more criminalised abortion, and so this tactic would, by necessity, require confessing to a crime in a court of law. While that law expressly prohibited the levying of penalties against the pregnant woman, the law allowing for lawsuits against people who &quot;aid and abet&quot; abortions didn't seem to apply to them either. As such, you'd be opening yourself up to fines of tens of thousands of dollars and a maximum prison sentence of life in jail.
Keep in mind that there are two kinds of legal consequences. One is criminal liability for violating a criminal statute, in a prosecution that must usually be brought by a government official. Merely causing emotional distress, in and of itself, is not generally a crime. For that matter, inducing someone to have sex with you through lies about anything other than the identity of the person having sex is usually not a crime. But inducing someone to disclose secrets or take actions that they otherwise would not have taken based upon a statement like this could be wire fraud, theft, extortion, or a variety of other crimes, depending upon what the person A was induced to do by the messages. Knowing what was sent, in isolation, doesn't tell you everything you need to know. While practicing medicine or other healing arts without a license is a crime or at least a civil offense, this wouldn't necessarily qualify, because person B is pretending to create someone treating person B, not pretending to practice medicine on person A. No one who wasn't in on the prank had medicine purportedly practiced upon them. But if the text were use to cause someone to act in reliance on a medical opinion (e.g., to get an employer to grant family leave to person A) then it might be illegal practice of medicine. The second is civil liability, in the form of a lawsuit for committing a civil wrong, called a &quot;tort&quot; or breaching a contract, or for other private individual initiated requests for remedies. The conduct in the question, conceivably gives rise to civil liability for intentional infliction of emotional distress, or civil fraud. But to know that it isn't enough to know what was said. One also has to know what happened on the other end of the communication. Did person A believe the text? Did person A suffer extreme emotional distress? Did person A part with money or information that couldn't have been obtained without a false statement of fact? Was person A's reputation harmed somehow?
Your personal liability depends on your state law regarding the family car doctrine, so the answer there is "maybe" (Texas is not a state with that doctrine, so simple ownership of the car does not confer liability). You would be liable if your supervision of the child was negligent, which means approximately that you knew or should have known that she was a bad driver and would cause damage. Still, the insurance company is suppose to indemnify you (plural) against such loses, as long as they are legally required to do so. That would include many considerations, such as whether the driver was covered under the policy, whether the car was being used contrary to the terms of the policy (being used commercially), and so on. The insurance company is entitled to make a reasonable determination of whether they are responsible for the loss (and if so, to what extent). If they actually decline to cover the loss, you would need to sue them to make them comply with the terms of the policy (and your lawyer would give you a detailed explanation of why they are not liable, in case they aren't). The plaintiff works with his insurance company to recover his insured losses, and with his lawyer to recover any uninsured losses. His insurance company works with your insurance company, up to a point, and then the lawyers get involved. Your daughter does not work with his insurance company, and your insurance company probably has said something along the line "only talk to us". The insurance that a driver typically has may cover some of their own medical costs, but does not provide a payment for "pain and suffering": that is an uninsured loss. It is not generally required that drivers carry insurance to cover their own medical expenses – it is required that they insure against damages, in general, suffered by other parties (if the defendant is at fault). So there is probably nothing for the plaintiff to work out with his insurance company. In Texas, if the defendant is entirely at fault, defendant will be liable for 100% of plaintiff's damages. If defendant is 90% at fault, defendant will be liable for 90% of plaintiff's damages. If defendant is 49% at fault, defendant is not liable. Defendant can, in any event, also sue for damages, so if defendant is 49% at fault, defendant can recover 49% of her damages. The insurance companies might be able to talk it out and reach a clear resolution of the matter, but it could be more in their interest to throw the dice and work it out in court. One can always sue at the very start, and drop the suit if it becomes advantageous.
Short Answer No. The immigration applicant is generally not entitled to his or her attorney fees in this situation, even though the government is violating one of its own laws. Long Answer The Black Letter Law Question The Right To Fees Depends On The Legal Theory Advanced A consistent answer doesn't exist at the level of generality of the title question. Some of the statutes that relate to a violation of the law by a government official include an attorney fees remedy to a prevailing plaintiff, while others do not. Violations of constitutional rights enforced under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 entitle a prevailing plaintiff to an attorney fees award. But the immigration law is a statutory requirement not a constitutional one and there is no generalized constitutional right to have the U.S. government comply with every provision of every enacted statute. Indeed, the general rule is that enforcement of statutory rights against private individuals is discretionary and non-justiciable. A writ of mandamus filed to compel the federal government to take action as it is required to do under the immigration laws would usually arise under the All Writs Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651, which does not generally entitle the prevailing plaintiff to attorneys' fees, and that would probably be the case in an All Writs Act petition for a writ of mandamus filed in relation to the timely processing of an immigration application. But the All Writs Act is basically a statutory touchstone through which the door is opened to the entire pre-Revolutionary War English common law of writ practice as modified in a common law manner through case law by the American federal courts, and there are probably some exceptions in fact patterns beyond the scope of the question. This said, I am not an expert in immigration law and it is possible that there are administrative law remedies under either the federal Administrative Procedures Act (APA) or the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) which might provide a different solution to the same problem. Article III Court Litigation Is The Rare Exception In Immigration Cases Keep in mind that most immigration law matters are in the exclusive original jurisdiction of the immigration courts, which are not Article III courts, and are instead staffed by administrative law judges operating according to immigration court procedures, which must then be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals, and only after those remedies are exhausted may most immigration cases be brought before an Article III court which in that case is the U.S. Court of Appeals for the circuit in which the case arose within the immigration court system. And, appellate review of BIA decisions is quite limited. Perhaps someone more familiar with the federal APA and INA would know if there is any right to attorneys' fees under those acts, although I suspect that the answer is that there is not. Indeed, the fact that Article III litigation is such a rare exception to the general rule is one of the reasons that this problem has not been viewed as a crisis that is critical to fix. It is easier to find alternative funding to litigate cases that come up only dozens of times a year than it is to do so for issues in cases that are routine and pervasive. Exceptions Apply Where There Is Wrongful Government Litigation Conduct Also, while attorney fees are not recoverable as a matter of course in actions arising under the All Writs Act where there is not a common law right to attorney fees in a particular fact pattern, attorney fee awards may still be entered in an action under the All Writs Act, or under any other cause of action in federal court, as a sanction for wrongful litigation conduct. There are three kinds of sanctions for wrongful litigation conduct that commonly arise: Rule 11 If a party files a legal document in a federal court case which is frivolous (i.e. lacks any colorable legal basis), groundless (i.e. lacks any factual basis), or vexatious (i.e. is made for the purposes of harassing a party or delaying the case for no legitimate purpose even if it is not otherwise frivolous or groundless), then an attorney fees award may be made as a sanction proportionate to the fees incurred as a result of the wrongful litigation conduct under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. Discovery Sanctions If a party fails to obey the rules governing pre-trial disclosure of information in &quot;discovery&quot; forcing the other party to enforce those obligations in motion practice prior to trial, one of the remedies that the court may (and often does) provide for this wrongful conduct is to award attorney fees to the party that requested the information and did not receive the response that party was entitled to under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37. Contempt of Court If a party or someone else with knowledge of the court order and some relationship to a party fails to obey a court order, or if someone who is present in the courtroom engages in conduct disrespectful to the court in the court's actual presence, party who engaged in this misconduct may be held in contempt of court. Contempt of court may be criminal, simply punishing the wrongdoer for misconduct in the same way that one might for a misdemeanor violation, or civil, imposing incarceration or fines or other remedies until the wrongdoer complies with a court order. When someone is held in contempt of court, the sanction for doing so frequently involves an award of attorneys fees incurred as a result of the wrongful action by a party to the case against the wrongdoer. Of these three options, the third, contempt of court, has the most bite as a practical matter. If a judge orders the immigration agency to meet a deadline by a certain time and it fails to do so, which isn't an uncommon result when it has already failed to do so despite receiving formal complaints about the delays, it is very likely that the sanction for failing to meet the court ordered deadline to comply will result in an attorney fees sanction against the government. Does This Rule Encourage Misbehavior? what would prevent the government from always abusing its power? It may decide to process applications as slow as possible, and only process an application in a timely manner if a lawsuit is filed against the government (at the expense of the applicant); but without any further financial consequences to the government. Sometimes Government Officials Do The Right Thing Because It's Their Job In any political and legal system, we have to count on some of the key actors to follow the law not because there are consequences for not following the law, but because their job is to uphold the law. For example, we trust judges and juries to try and rule in accordance with the facts presented to them and the relevant law in the cases they decide in court, even though both judges and juries have absolute immunity from liability for their official judicial acts. The President, and every single other federal government official, federal judge and federal administrative law judge, is likewise sworn to uphold the constitution of the United States, and the President and everyone else in the executive branch acting with authority delegated to them from the President's Executive Branch power has a duty to &quot;faithfully execute the laws&quot; of the United States. Presidential elections represent (theoretically anyway) the judgment of the American people concerning who is most able to do that job properly and to make good choices about how to exercise discretion in doing so. Also, as a practical matter, many snarls in the immigration process are handled by members of Congress in their constituent service role or through the passage of private laws, rather than by attorneys for the applicants in the Article III court, in part precisely because individual litigants can rarely afford to pay lawyers to do that. Almost every Senator and members of the House of Representatives (539 in all including non-voting delegates who still get staff), where I worked as an intern for a while, has a staff member who devotes perhaps 1/4 to 1/2 FTE to resolving cases like this one. Sometimes Delays Are Unavoidable And Not Due To Official Misconduct The wrongfulness of the delay is also mitigated by the fact that often delays are not due to any bad faith conduct on behalf of the federal government officials involved. It is not infrequently the case that it is impossible for federal government officials to do the job that Congress have given them a mandate to carry out, by the deadlines that Congress has set forth, with the funds that Congress has appropriated to them to get the job done. This is true not just in the immigration law context, but in all sorts of circumstances. The Political System's Design Naturally Disfavors Immigrants Of course, politicians and government officials often don't do everything that they are supposed to do for reasons that aren't noble or blameless. The administration in place for the last four years as of the time that this answer is written specifically campaigned on a platform of radically reducing legal immigration and largely succeeded in doing so, even though it lost many particular legal battles on that front. This wouldn't be the first time that this has happened. Immigrants, by definition, are made up of a class of people who can't vote in Presidential or Congressional elections and, as the median voter theorem would predict, their interests as non-voters fall to the bottom of the political priorities. The U.S. Legal System Is Applying Rules Designed For Different Contexts The other reason that this happens is that it evolved that way. There are a lot of good policy reasons (beyond the scope of this answer) for the American Rule that each side bears their own attorney fees in lawsuits between private parties. In a nutshell, it encourages people not to litigate minor disputes and encourages settlements that reduce the deadweight loss of transaction costs associated with litigation in lawsuits where there are substantial amounts in controversy. There are good arguments for the opposite rule as well, which is why there are many exceptions to it and why the English legal system, post-1789, ultimately ended up changing its default fee shifting rule. But when that rule was put in place, &quot;public law&quot; (i.e. lawsuits between the government and private individuals and between governments) was largely outside the jurisdiction of the common law courts that are the ancestors of the modern U.S. court system. The general rule was that you couldn't sue the government or government officials at all, and there were few exceptions and the scope of government regulation in people's lives was much smaller, although that was starting to change. Other Countries Adopt The Rule You Propose In contrast, in French law, under the First Republic, sovereign immunity from its citizens (that survived in England) was abolished, and the Republic established a separate legal system for handling public law disputes, under the supervision of the French Council of State, that has endured through the present. In the French system, copied in principle (although not every administrative detail) by essentially all other countries with a civil law legal system, once you file a public law complaint (on a form you can purchase at your neighborhood convenience store), the Council of State assigns one public law lawyer (basically a senior civil servant and not a member of the same legal professions as private law lawyers and notaries and prosecutors and judges) to represent the government in your case, and assigns another one from the same pool of government lawyers to represent its citizens in the case, in a manner similar to how barristers are assigned to serious criminal cases on a case by case basis in the British criminal justice system. There is a lot to be said for the civil law approach. Historically, it has led to government bureaucracies that are better run and treat citizens more fairly and with less corruption, relative to U.S. style systems, which is an important reason why state owned enterprises are much more popular in countries with civil law systems than in countries without them. But that simply isn't the path that U.S. law has taken, even though there are good arguments that the U.S. system is more vulnerable to being unfair. Various Workarounds And Limitations Prevent Worst Case Scenarios Still, because government officials do try to follow the law as best they can most of the time (especially career civil servants who implement the political appointee's policies), and because really outrageous litigation conduct by government lawyers who take unreasonable positions in public law litigation can result in judicial sanctions, the system still does provide some means for relief when the government violates the law. Finally, the fact that attorney fees aren't shifted in these cases doesn't mean that these cases aren't litigated. In some cases, the individual or their sponsor can afford to litigate the issue. In some cases, immigration attorneys litigate the issue pro bono (i.e. without charge to the client) because the issue has importance to their ability to deliver results to all their other clients or as a form of charitable giving and, in some cases, local governments fund this litigation on behalf of their non-citizen residents or non-profit advocacy groups fund this kind of litigation from private donations. For example, the City of Denver is among those local governments that has established a fund to help pay lawyers to litigate immigration issues on behalf of its residents to address the financial barriers those residents face to enforcing their legal rights under federal immigration laws. So, in an example of the Coase Theorem of economics, even when the formal legal arrangements and rules of a system are non-optimal, a free market economy tends to find workarounds that reallocate unfair burdens in a way that is sufficient to make the system as a whole function better.
Defamation that is actionable in court in the United States consists of a false statement about a presently existing fact that damages your reputation and is not a matter of opinion. While not strictly required in a case involving private parties that is not a matter of public concern, most defamation cases require proof that the false statement was made knowing it was false or with reckless disregard for the truth (which basically means with no factual basis and no ability to know if it is true or false). Hyperbole is excluded. Statements made to you personally cannot be defamatory, since you know the truth. For example, claims that you were falsely called mentally ill might be considered statement of opinion or hyperbole. Similarly, if the person who said you weren't being hacked actually believed this was true (e.g. the pastor's assistant might believe this based upon what the pastor who was knowledgeable about computers might have told the assistant), then that might also not be actionable. Most states have quite short statutes of limitations for defamation. For example, in Colorado, the statute of limitations is one year from the date that you learn that a statement was made to another person. Some kinds of defamatory statements (slander per se) do not require proof that you suffered actual damage to your reputation. Other kinds of defamatory statements do require hard proof of your economic damages. Harassment does not neatly fit into one legal category. There could be claims for intentional infliction of extreme emotional distress, for breach of fiduciary duty owed by a pastor to a parishioner, for sexual harassment if factually appropriate, or for retaliation for certain kinds of lawful conduct. None of these are particularly easy to prove and again, the statute of limitations is not terribly long, typically two or three years from an incident. Both defamation and harassment claims would be subject to first amendment immunities to the extent that they involved a religious official who could be legitimately characterized as carrying out a religious function in making the statements. Given the events you describe, this is probably a weak defense, but it would certainly pose one more hurdle to a lawsuit. Another remedy for harassment and stalking, in addition to or instead of money damages in a lawsuit, might be to seek a restraining order against the people who are the source of the problem if you could really prove it with evidence that is admissible in a court of law that a judge would be likely to find to be more credible than the lies that they try to tell to defend themselves in court. Finally, many forms of hacking violate state and federal laws and one of the federal laws, at least, contains a right to bring a private lawsuit against the hacker to enforce it. The first amendment religion and free speech clauses would not generally protect any hacking activity either. But, proving that someone is guilty of hacking, even in the face of strong circumstantial evidence, is often very difficult. For example, even if you can prove that the hacking originated at an IP address belonging to the pastor, proving that the pastor was actually the person at the keyboard and not a friend of his or another family member of his, might be quite difficult to prove. Also, as in the cases of defamation and harassment, quantifying your money damages could be difficult. Stalking and hacking are also both usually criminal offenses so you could file a complaint with a law enforcement agency, although many law enforcement agencies lack the ability and competence to understand and investigate hacking cases and the inclination to deal firmly with allegations of stalking. There are practical steps that can be taken to prevent hacking from a technological angle, although I am not competent to tell you what they are, and your post doesn't provide sufficient detail to know in any case. Obviously, this isn't a legal solution. You can also be mindful in your daily life to act in a manner that mitigates your exposure to stalking although there are limits to how effective this non-legal solution can be as well. You can combat character assassination with non-legal PR and counter-gossip approaches as well as with lawsuits. Ultimately, you need to decide what to do and may need to confer with a lawyer and give that lawyer detailed factual information to evaluate your claims, and you may or may not decide that the legal system is a good solution. Proving incidents in a he said, she said situation, especially when one of the people involved is an outwardly respected pastor who has no qualms about lying and gas lighting, can be very difficult - so in the absence of proof, you may need to figure out how to develop proof before it is sensible to sue and you may not have much time to do that. You are unfortunately in a situation with no easy solution, just a variety of second best options, and you have to decide which ones to pursue. You also need to focus not on what remedies the law allows, or what wrongs have been done by the perpetrators. Instead, you need to focus on what will maximize your personal well being. Some people find that litigation can bring closure and relief, but ultimately, you can't control what the criminal justice system does and you have only partial control over what happens in a civil lawsuit. The litigation process prevents you from letting go of the matter if you later decide that is what will serve you best, can be costly, can be unjust, and can be aggravating. In terms of time, treasure and its impact on you emotionally, it can be a very expensive solution and can force you into a position where you are not in control. If the court finds that your evidence isn't solid enough, you could end up worse off, rather than better off, as a result of a civil lawsuit. And, usually, you can not get your attorneys' fees as part of your damages in a civil lawsuit for defamation or some kinds of harassment (such as intentional infliction of emotional distress) even if you prevail. Ultimately, a court in a civil action for wrongful conduct can award you money, but can't vindicate you morally or remove that person from his position in the organization. Also, if you win a money judgment, you still have to identify assets or income from which you can collect it and many of these claims would not be covered by any insurance policy. And, ultimately, a restraining order, while potentially a helpful tool in helping to get the wrong doers to back off, is just a piece of paper stating your rights and describing conduct that would be wrongful and punished if proven, not a magical shield that prevents someone from violating that restraining order just as they have violated your dignity and reasonable expectations of civil treatment and probably your legal rights already. You have to decide what your personal objectives are and how best to achieve them without getting unduly focused on the limited and imperfect options that the legal system provides.
As a lawsuit, it doesn't make sense in U.S. law unless you have suffered significant injuries. Your damages are likely to be, at most, nominal ($1) if you discovered it before you were hurt, so you'd only lose the money spent replacing the jar of peanut butter with a non-defective one and the nominal $1 damages. You would not generally have a right to any of your attorneys' fees and personal time spent on a lawsuit like that which would likely cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on an hourly basis (no attorney would take a case like that on a contingency basis), and would take hundreds of hours of your own personal time.
There is, of course, no way to tell how the Court would deal with such a case today. This is not a frequently litigated issue, with lots of case law. I note that in the case you link to, the court limited the statute to false claims made "with a fraudulent purpose". This normally means that the claimant is attempting to secure an improper financial or materiel advantage. In the United States v. Tandaric case, the person convicted had falsely claimed to be a US Citizen on an employment application for a company which did not hire non-citizens, and so gained a job through this false statement. He could have been convicted of ordinary Fraud. The court has not been as protective of Fraud under the First Amendment as it has been of speech generally, or even of false but non-fraudulent speech. I am not at all sure if the court would overturn this law in a similar case today. Edit: In the United States v. Achtner case, the court wrote: But we agree with the District Court that the representation of citizenship must still be made to a person having some right to inquire or adequate reason for ascertaining a defendant's citizenship; it is not to be assumed that so severe a penalty is intended for words spoken as a mere boast or jest or to stop the prying of some busybody, ... This seems to dispose of the example in the question of a neighbor who is merly inquiring as to the character of the area, or perhaps from simple curiosity, and a false speaker who seems to get no direct benefit or advantage from the falsehood. Both linked cases involved false statements made to employers or potential employees, during wartime at that, with the false speaker's employment apparently at stake.
Is there a cause of action for &quot;Outrageous conduct&quot; that does not depend on the vulnerability to the emotional distress of an individual but might be properly applied to a public official (acting in official capacity) due to the effects on society as a whole? No. There is no such cause of action. A public official acting in the official's official capacity is immune from civil liability in tort for intentional acts that do not violate a clearly established constitutional right. There are some narrow exceptions to this general rule. For example, certain employment discrimination lawsuits are allowed. Similarly, for example, embezzlement of private funds held in a fiduciary capacity by a public official in charge of conducting foreclosures would be actionable in many states. But there are no exceptions that are in any way a fit to the fact pattern described. Furthermore, at least in federal courts, there can't be such a cause of action. An action that has an effect on society as a whole is, by definition, an act which no one has standing to sue regarding. Standing to sue, which is a subject matter jurisdictional requirement in federal court, requires a particularized injury to a legally protected interest of an individual that is distinct from the injury caused to the general public, or taxpayers generally, or citizens generally. State law, in principle, can give standing to someone who does not have standing under this federal constitutional law standard in state court, but most states make only the most narrow exceptions to the principle. For example, some states give someone standing to sue for violation of state constitutional budget and tax rules that apply to legislation generally. Often standing exceptions and exceptions from the federal court case and controversy requirement (which is also a matter of subject matter jurisdiction in federal court) are waived at the same time.