Lawsuit

“ But for the great body of the people,—those who have no money that they can afford to risk in a lawsuit,—no matter what may be their rights in either a civil or criminal suit,—their cases are hopeless. ”

“ A lawsuit only arises where there is a dispute to settle. If people agreed about their rights there would be little need of courts. In criminal cases, the government through the grand jury charges by indictment that a man committed a certain crime. ”

“ The rule is founded upon an obviously sound policy of preventing litigants from abiding the outcome of a lawsuit and then overturning it if adverse upon a technicality of which they were previously aware. ”

“ The ordinary lawsuit, where one person is suing another to recover money, property, or damages, is triable by a jury. You understand of course the purpose of a trial. As already explained the main thing in every trial is to determine the truth as to the points in dispute, and the truth in such cases under our Constitution is determined, not by judges, but by jurors, men from the ordinary walks of life, your neighbors, men accustomed to dealing with ordinary human affairs. ”

“ In the case now before us subsequent events have produced similar consequences. The focus of this lawsuit has been completely blurred, if not altogether obliterated, and our judgment on the important issues involved is potentially immaterial. ”

“ Preclusion also breeds disrespect for the judicial process, because it substitutes for the meritorious adjudication of litigants' claims, to which our civil justice system heretofore has been devoted, a non-meritorious procedural bar to justice triggered merely by a lawyer's decision, whether purposeful or merely ill-advised, to omit a party from a prior lawsuit. ”

“ The ordinary lawsuit, civil or criminal, normally depends for its resolution on which version of the facts in dispute is accepted by the trier of fact. Where the number of facts in dispute increases, the arithmetical chance of their uniform resolution diminishes-but it does not disappear. ”

“ A prudent man will not purchase a lawsuit, or risk the loss of his money and labor upon a litigious title. The act now under consideration was intended to remedy this evil. It is in substance a bill of peace. The jurisdiction of the court over the controversy id founded on the presence of the property; and, like a proceeding in rem, it becomes conclusive against the absent claimant, as well as the present contestant. As was said by the court in Clark v. ”

“ When a plaintiff persists in the prosecution of a meritless complaint, however, or the defendant joins issue by filing an answer or motion for summary judgment, Rule 11 has a proper role to play. The prosecution of baseless lawsuits and the filing of frivolous papers are matters of legitimate concern to the federal courts and are abuses that Rule 11 was designed to deter. ”

“ As may be easily imagined, lawsuits are not conducted with the frigid decorum that usually marks the hearing of a civil case in England; the facts that plaintiff and defendant appear in person, each to conduct his own case, and that each enjoys practically unlimited freedom to say what he likes about his opponent and about things in general, introduce a dramatic element which is lacking in the more stately procedure of Western law-courts. ”

“ Finally, there is the very important consideration of judicial economy and the prevention of premature and unnecessary lawsuits, particularly at this time when the courts are overrun with litigants on every subject. ”

“ Such termination of lawsuits is essential to the efficient administration of justice. I would not frustrate the policy by allowing litigants to upset judgments of long standing on allegations such as Klapprott's. ”

“ Section 1915 (d) has a separate function, one which molds rather differently the power to dismiss which it confers. Section 1915 (d) is designed largely to discourage the filing of, and waste of judicial and private resources upon, baseless lawsuits that paying litigants generally do not initiate because of the costs of bringing suit and because of the threat of sanctions for bringing vexatious suits under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11. ”

“ SLAPP suits have been defined as “... ‘civil lawsuits ... that are aimed at preventing citizens from exercising their political rights or punishing those who have done so.’ (Canan & Pring, Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (1988) 35 Social Problems 506.) ”

“ Where such fact occurs in any stage of a cause, whether it be in a court of original or appellate jurisdiction, if it occur as to any of several plaintiffs or defendants, the suit may proceed for or against the others, if the cause of suit survive to or against them. If a plaintiff or defendant die pending any action, whether the cause of action would survive at common law or not, the same may be revived and prosecuted to judgment and execution in the same manner as if it were for a cause of action arising out of contract. ”

“ The present litigation well illustrates the embarrassments which would attend the defense of suits brought against the Government if the jurisdiction of district courts were not deemed to be as restricted as is that of the Court of Claims. The Government, to protect its interests, must not only litigate the claim upon which it has consented to be sued, but must make certain that respondent's right, as against the judgment debtor, to maintain the suit is properly adjudicated. ”

“ Hence the law gives to every man a right to complain of or sue another, if he has probable cause to believe he has ground for such complaint or suit. For the exercise of this right he cannot be made accountable in damages, except so far as the law, for the discouragement of private suits, imposes upon him the costs of the litigation. In the case of criminal charges, this right of making complaint is given to every man, for all are interested in the preservation of public order. ”

“ Lilly describes the office and nature of the proceeding as follows: 'Nonsuit is when a man brings a personal action, and doth not prosecute it with effect, or else upon the trial refuses to stand a verdict; then he becomes nonsuited, which is recorded by the court, and the defendant recovers his costs against him.' 'The court cannot compel the plaintiff to appear and stand a verdict; but if the plaintiff appears, or his counsel or attorney appears for him, he cannot be afterwards nonsuit, but the jury must deliver in their verdict.' 2 Lil. ”

“ The right of a citizen to sue his state is not, therefore, in such case, coeval with the institution of his action, and the great principle is consequently violated which requires that there must be a cause of action, as well as proper parties at the time of instituting the suit. The ground of jurisdiction, or of action, may show itself for the first time, months and years after the institution of the suit, and the constitution or law, which is to give the court jurisdiction, may come out for the first time in the surrebutter of the defendant. ”

“ The repeal is not to affect in any manner any 'suit or prosecution.' The definition is thus given of the term suit 'the lawful demand of one's right,' or, in the words of Justinian, 'jus prosequendi in judicio quo alicui debetur.' 3 Blackstone's Commentaries, 116. If a 'suit' means the lawful demand of one's right, there necessarily must be some one to make the demand, and some one of whom the demand is made, through the medium of a court, and these parties receive the names of plaintiff and defendant. ”

“ Here, respondents are proceeding against the state itself to prevent the exercise of its authority to maintain a suit in its own court.
The proceeding by ancillary and supplemental bill to restrain the state from this exercise of authority is unquestionably a 'suit.' Said Chief Justice Marshall in Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 407, 408, 5 L.Ed. 257: 'What is a suit? We understand it to be prosecution or pursuit of some claim, demand or request; in law language, it is the prosecution of some demand in a court of justice. ”

“ Any person who shall be injured in his business or property by any other or corporation, by reason of anything forbidden or declared to be unlawful by this act, may sue therefor in any circuit court of the United States in the district in which the defendant resides or is found, without respect to the amount in controversy, and shall recover threefold the damages by him sustained, and the costs of the suit, including a reasonable attorney's fee. ”

“ Ct. 266, the principle was again announced (Mr. Justice Shiras delivering the opinion) that a suit against individuals, 'who claim to act as officers of a state, and, under color of an unconstitutional statute, commit acts of wrong and injury to the property of the plaintiff, to recover money or property in their hands unlawfully taken by them in behalf of the state, or for compensation for damages, is not, within the meaning of the constitution, an action against the state.'
The adjudged cases, in principle, determine the one before us. ”

“ It is plain that such court has jurisdiction to render a particular judgment only when the offense charged is within the class of offenses placed by the law under its jurisdiction, and when, in taking custody of the accused, and in its modes of procedure to the determination of the question of his guilt or innocence, and in rendering judgment, the court keeps within the limitations prescribed by the law, customary or statutory. When the court goes out of these limitations, its action, to the extent of such excess, is void. ”

“ After further pointing out the distinction between the right of an individual to sue in a trial court to enforce an individual right or redress a wrong, and, if aggrieved, to prosecute error or appeal, and the difference between the exertion on such error or appeal of authority to review, and the extraordinary power exerted when original jurisdiction was invoked, the court came to consider the merits of the petition. ”

“ All the assignments of error, but one, are founded upon exceptions taken to the charge of the circuit judge. They are numerous; and many of them do not conform to the rules of this court, or to the exceptions which were actually taken. Without examining them separately, we shall consider the legal questions they present, so far as they have any bearing upon the case.
The suit was founded upon express guaranties of the genuineness and regularity of issue of county warrants,-guaranties which, the plaintiff alleged, had been broken. ”

“ In a suit to which the state is neither formally nor really a party, its officers, although acting by its order and for its benefit, may be restrained by injunction, when the remedy at law is inadequate, from doing positive acts, for which they are personally and individually liable, taking or injuring the plaintiff's property, contrary to a plain official duty requiring no exercise of discretion, and in violation of the constitution or laws of the United States. ”

“ It would be a most pernicious doctrine to allow a citizen of a distant State to institute in these courts a suit against a citizen of the State where the court is held and escape the liability which the laws of the State have attached to all plaintiffs of allowing just and legal set-offs and counter claims to be interposed and tried in the same suit and in the same form. ”

“ But where the suit is against an individual by name, and he desires to plead an exemption by reason of his representative character, he does not raise a question of jurisdiction in its proper sense. As already observed, this question depends upon the language of the statute, although the word 'jurisdiction' is frequently, and somewhat loosely, used to indicate the right of the plaintiff to sue, or the liability of the defendant to be sued, in a particular case. ”

“ This court held, in the language of Judge Catron, that, 'as the plaintiff had no vested right in the penalty, the legislature might discharge the defendant by repealing the law.'
A judgment is only one of the steps in the progress of a suit by which the plaintiff, if successful, obtains what he is seeking. It only declares the right of the party, but does not create it. ”

“ It is true that the Supreme Court in disposing of the first appeal relied on a companion case in which it was said that 'plaintiff must be considered to have sued 'upon a liability created by statute'.' [7] The pleadings in the companion case are not before us. No separate statement of a statutory cause of action is set out in the complaint in this case. The state court did not dispose of the liability for statutory violation as a separate cause of action by dismissal or otherwise. ”

“ It is evident that congress intended to open the doors of the court of claims to the plaintiffs, so far as to permit them to sue the government, unembarrassed by any defense of the statute of limitations, and to obtain an adjudication, based upon 'the law and facts,' as to the liability of the United States for the wrongs of which complaint is made. ”

“ Provided, That all persons may elect to sue for the penalties aforesaid, or to proceed under their rights at common law and by State statutes; and having so elected to proceed in the one mode or the other, their right to proceed in the other jurisdiction shall be barred: But this provision shall not apply to criminal proceedings, either under this act or the criminal law of any State: and provided further, That a judgment for the penalty in favor of the party aggrieved, or a judgment upon an indictment, shall be a bar to either prosecution respectively. ”

“ But if a farther or different recourse is sought against the marshal, one which may be supposed to arise neither from the inherent power of the court over its peculiar officer, or its judgments; then it is presumed that those who seek such recourse, must show their right as arising out of their character to sue in the federal courts; they must show themselves by regular averment to be citizens of a state other than that of him whom they seek to implead. ”