I learned a fun fact recently: in Europe, if the plaintiff in a civil suit loses their case, they are required to pay the defendant's legal fees. In America, there is no such obligation. This leads to an ease of filing frivolous lawsuits in America.
I heard about one such case where someone sued, completely illegitimately, for damages of $1M. They knew they would probably lose in court, but they also projected that the defendant would have to spend over $1M to get that verdict. As such, it's cheaper for the defense to just settle with a no-fault clause or similar. Essentially, lawsuits are an opportunistic business. The case went to trial, but after years and over $1M in fees, it was settled because there was just no end in sight.
In Europe, this scenario would have lead to the complete ruin of the plaintiff. The European model discourages (or even prevents?) frivolous suits because there's an additional consequence of losing. Isn't this a great system?
Turns out it has the same exact problem (or at least I think it does), in reverse: it would significantly discourage 50/50 lawsuits because the plaintiff fears they could be on the hook. It also discourages a small entity from suing a big one because the defense fees for the big guy could completely cripple the smaller. I have no idea if there's more nuance here, but both systems run into opposite ends of the same issue spectrum.
Is there a better way? Could the judge just rule "ok come on, that was a frivolous case" vs "yeah, you had reason to believe you might really win"? Is that too arbitrary? We don't want to put barriers (especially financial ones) in the way of small entities seeking justice, but we also have to rein in frivolity. Where's the line?
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