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by sowbug 1149 days ago
TL;DR: yes, but if outlandishness crosses over to deceit, you risk penalties.

Anyone can file a lawsuit if they pay the filing fees.

If they hire a lawyer, the lawyer must uphold the ethical standards of the bar, which carry suspension/disbarment penalties. Those standards generally include a good-faith belief in the legal merits of your client's case, adherence to all laws and court procedures, speaking up when you believe a law is about to be broken, etc.

The client (you) will eventually be called as a witness, and you can go to jail if you lie on the stand or otherwise present false evidence. Unfortunately, the penalties seem to happen a lot less often than the perjury. That's partly because perjury is a criminal offense, carrying a higher burden of proof than a civil claim.

1 comments

Wright's been civilly found to commit perjury-- but they just hit him with a fine and he keeps going. He was hit with a criminal contempt charge two decades ago for perjury and forgery in court, sentenced to 30 days in jail but he got it reduced to community service. But even if it hadn't been-- so what? He'd probably ultimately benefit from it by spinning it into a story about that time when he went to jail in for standing up for his beliefs in the face of a corrupt judge or whatever.

The main consequence of perjury in civil court is that it tends to cause you to lose. But when you're bringing cases with no serious prospect of success for collateral purposes... it doesn't really matter if you lose, and if lying is the only way you might win... The other consequences seem calibrated for otherwise upstanding people that actually care about the consequences of their actions, not for grifters using the courts as a weapon.

Even worse, he wins more than he pays for his perjury, due to Britain's criminal-protecting libel laws.