Abuso del Litigio

A judge will assume the litigation is abusive if you can prove one of the following:

1. You and the abuser had the same or a substantially similar case in the same or another court within the past five years;
2. A judge already made a decision or dismissed a case about the same or a substantially similar issue in the last five years, after considering the evidence, facts, and the law (“a decision on the merits”);
3. A judge punished (sanctioned) the abuser in the last five years for filing a baseless (frivolous), harassing (vexatious), hardline (intransigent), or bad faith case against you;
4. A judge already ruled that the abuser used abusive litigation and placed a pre-filing restriction on him/her;
5. The abuser’s legal claims are not based on existing laws or a reasonable argument for changing the law;
6. The abuser’s claims lack evidence, and s/he is unlikely to find enough proof later after further investigation; or
7. The abuser already lost the same issue in another court case after it was litigated in court and presented to the judge for a decision.¹

If you can show one of the seven factors listed above, it creates what is called a “rebuttable presumption.” This means the judge will assume the abuser did file abusive litigation, and it is up to the abuser to prove otherwise.¹

¹ R.I. Gen. Laws § 8-8.4-3