Cost of frivolous suit

• Published date: 24 January 2023
• Publication title: Nigeria - The Nation

Former President Donald Trump of United States of America and his counsel were fined nearly $1 million for filling a frivolous law suit against the former presidential candidate of the Democratic Party, Senator Hilary Clinton. According to media report, Southern District of Florida Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks held: 'This case should never have been initiated. Its inadequateness as a legal claim was immediately apparent.' The judge went on: 'No reasonable lawyer would have filed it. Intended for political purpose, none of the counts of the amended complaint stated a cognisable claim.'

He further held: 'A continuing pattern of misuse of courts by Mr Trump and his lawyers undermines the rule of law, portrays judges as partisans, and diverts resources from those who have suffered actual legal harm.' He decided that former President Trump, 'is the mastermind of strategic abuse of the judicial process, and he cannot be seen as a litigant blindly following the advice of a lawyer.'

I have quoted the report extensively because the words of the judge are instructive for our judiciary as we march down to the general elections.

No doubt we have many who like Donald Trump use the courts to achieve political purposes. Indeed, some have alluded that our courts have become a veritable way to gain political position, just like the ballot box. Some have gone as far as openly referring to a sitting governor as a Supreme Court governor. So, it is instructive that judges heed the advice of their learned brother and come down hard on litigants and lawyers who prosecute cases that could depict the court as partisan.

Filling frivolous suits is a form of abuse of court process or abuse of judicial process. In Sheriff v PDP (2017) 14 NWLR, abuse of court process was explained to mean that 'the process of the court has not been used bona fide and properly. It also connotes the employment of judicial process by a party in improper use to the irritation or annoyance of his opponent and the efficient and defective administration of justice.'

Again, in Ikine v Edjerode (2002) F.W.L.R Pt. 92, the Supreme Court held: 'For an action to be declared frivolous, vexatious, oppressive and an abuse of the process of court, it must be shown quite clearly that there are two or more actions between the same parties in respect of the same subject matter in one or more courts at the same time.' This type of abuse is common when a plaintiff is in undue haste to stop the happening of an event, especially...