Legal Question in Constitutional Law in Wisconsin

Re: Frivolous Lawsuits

There are few truly frivolous lawsuits. Suing someone is expensive, and people with frivolous claims seldom want to spend much money pursuing them. Additionally, lawyers are ethically obligated not to bring lawsuits they know to be frivolous. (Despite what many people seem to say, the vast majority of lawyers are ethical and take their obligations seriously.)

While it is true that many plaintiffs' attorneys will often work on a contingent-fee basis, they do not want to waste their time on a case that they are unlikely to win -- or at least to settle for an amount that will justify the work they put into it. These attorneys evaluate cases before accepting them, and are generally quite good at screening out those which are truly frivolous. Even when they don't recognize initially realize a case is frivolous, they will usually back out as soon as they do.

Defendants like to call lawsuits frivolous because it makes them sound like the victims. Sometimes that's true, but it is more common to see that label used against meritorious claims.

Politicians -- most of whom are members of a particular party -- often claim that frivolous lawsuits are a major problem. Most of them probably know better. Their constituents, however, are more likely to be defendants than plaintiffs, and the politicians want their support. They often try to pass laws which make it harder for plaintiffs to win lawsuits and/or which limit the amount they can recover if they do win. The hoopla about frivolous lawsuits is thus much more about winning elections than about addressing an actual problem.

Of course, there are genuinely frivolous lawsuits now and then. I have represented defendant in such cases. In one the plaintiffs were motivated by personal animosity and were willing to pay their lawyers' fees in order to make life difficult for one of the other defendants. Such things happen in life, unfortunately. But the efforts by politicians which are ostensibly aimed at frivolous suits will deter many meritorious claims for each frivolous claim they manage to block. In my view, such laws cause much more harm than good.