More on that Econo Lodge suit..

Thanks to Overlawyered for doing more research on that Econo Lodge lawsuit I wrote about last week. They were kind enough to dig out the appellate court decision so you can read it in its entirety. (Oh, FYI, to the commenter who asked: This was a pro se suit, even the appeal.) 

Overlawyered suggests that there need to be stronger deterrents to filing frivolous suits, but it doesn't actually suggest what they might be. Stiffer fines? Even the appellate court judges recognized that the Econo Lodge plaintiff was unlikely to pay the $2,500 penalty for the frivolous filing, so what would be the point of higher fines? Should we put the guy in jail? That seems a bit excessive, too. One obvious solution would be to ban pro se lawsuits, since a huge number of  frivolous suits are brought by people representing themselves. But then, that wouldn't be very democratic, would it? Saying you have to be rich enough to pay a lawyer to get into court is highly un-American.

So again, I would never argue that there aren't frivolous suits in the legal system, or that they don't cost innocent people and businesses money. But I have yet to see anyone propose a cure for this that doesn't also infringe on everyone else's legitimate access to the courts. Frivolous suits are the cost of preserving constitutional rights to access to the civil courts, in the same way that guilty criminals occasionally go free because the police conducted an illegal search. No one likes those results, either, but we tolerate them for the greater good of protecting critical constitional rights.

Comments

[Greg Bershow]

Stephanie, the obvious solution to the epidemic of frivolous lawsuits is to stop letting people sue corporations. The courts were created as a place for corporations to take private citizens to task in lieu of a properly functioning debtor's prison. The idea that some commoner should be able to sue an innocent, defenseless corporation is just thickheaded.

The best result of the Econo Lodge suit would be for Congress to pass blanket liability immunity for places of lodging. After all, if Congress fails to protect hotels, motels, inns, and lodges, they will all soon move overseas. And in a post-9/11 world, can we really afford that?

I think you know the answer.

[Ted]

Or one could change legal procedure such that cases like this fall by the wayside before defendants are forced to incur substantial legal costs defending them.

But for what it's worth, I don't think pro se cases like Econo Lodge are such a huge burden on the system in the greater scheme of things, as fun as they are to talk about.

(Separately, it seems I've been vindicated in noting that investment banks paid billions purely for protection value in the Enron suit now that the banks who dared to defend themselves have won. *That's* an expensive problem.)