Abuso del Litigio

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