“Abusive litigation” means a legal action taken in court or related to a court case that is intended to abuse, harass, intimidate, threaten, or maintain contact with you.¹ It is often carried out by an abusive partner who is trying to keep power and control over a victim who has left the relationship or is in the process of trying to leave. Abusive litigation can be any kind of legal action, including but not limited to:

• filing or serving a summons, complaint, or petition;
• filing or serving a motion, notice of court date, or order to appear; or
• filing or serving a subpoena, subpoena duces tecum, interrogatories, request for production of documents, notice of deposition, or another discovery request.² 

If you are facing abusive litigation, you may be able to ask the court to restrict the ability of the abuser to continue to file new cases or motions.

¹ RI Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-1(1)
² RI Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-1(4)

There are certain circumstances that will create what is called a “rebuttable presumption” that the court case against you is, in fact, abusive litigation. This means that if you can show one of the following situations has happened, the judge will assume the litigation is abusive and the abuser would then bear the burden of proving otherwise:

1. The same or substantially similar issues have been litigated in any court between you and the abuser within the past five years;
2. The same or substantially similar issues have been raised or pled in a court case in the past five years and the judge heard the evidence and made a decision (decided on the merits) or it was dismissed;
3. The abuser has been punished (sanctioned) by any court in the past five years for filing one or more cases against you that were found to be without a legal basis (frivolous), harassing (vexatious), “intransigent,” or in bad faith;
4. The abuser has been found by any court to have engaged in abusive litigation or similar acts and that court placed pre-filing restrictions on him/her;
5. The abuser’s legal claims against you are not based on:
   
   1. any existing law;
   2. a reasonable argument that the current law should be changed; or
   3. a reasonable argument for passing a new law;
6. The abuser’s factual allegations against you are not based on adequate evidence or there is unlikely to be adequate evidence after further investigation; or
7. One or more of the issues that the abuser is using as the basis of the current case against you has already been filed in another court, and the abuser lost in that other court after the issues were litigated.¹

¹ RI Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-3

For you to be able to request an order, one of the following must be true:

1. the person engaging in abusive litigation is your current or former family or household member, which is defined as:

• your current or former intimate partner;
• your current or former spouse;
• related to you by blood or marriage;
• someone who is living with you or has lived with you in the past three years;
• someone you have a child with; or
• someone you are currently dating or have dated or been engaged to within the past year; or  

2. there a civil order or criminal conviction finding that the person engaging in abusive litigation stalked or sexually assaulted you.¹

In both of the above situations, you will also need to show that a judge has determined that this person committed abuse, stalking, or sexual assault against you in any of the following documents:

• a final domestic violence restraining order;
• a final protective order issued under section 15-5-19 of the law;
• a no-contact order;
• a final sexual assault protective;
• a final abuse prevention order issued by the court of any other state, including U.S. territories and any federally recognized Indian tribe, that has similar provisions to Rhode Island’s abuse prevention orders;
• a final order for alimony or custody of children;
• a criminal conviction, plea of “nolo contendere,” or a filed criminal charge in any state for one of the criminal offenses listed in section 12-29-2 of the law;
• a pending criminal charge for domestic violence in any state, if the court has imposed conditions on the abuser’s release to protect the safety of the victim; or
• a signed affidavit from a domestic violence or sexual assault advocate or counselor working on behalf of an agency that helps victims of domestic violence and sexual assault.²

¹ RI Gen. Laws §§ 8-8.4-2(a); 8-8.4-1(2)
² RI Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-1(1)(ii)

There is no filing fee to request an order restricting abusive litigation.¹

¹ RI Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-2(h)

If after you present all of your evidence, the judge decides that the litigation against you is not abusive, the judge is required to issue a written order explaining why. The case that the abuser has brought against you will then proceed normally and you will be expected to participate in it.¹

You can read more about appealing an order if you believe the judge made an error, and you can look for a lawyer if you need advice on your options at this stage. If you are hoping to prevent the abuser from contacting you outside of court, you may also want to read about domestic violence restraining orders and sexual assault protective orders to see if you qualify for either.

¹ RI Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-4(c)