Frivolous Claims: Concept and Strategies to Reduce (A Comparative Study of the Case Law of Iran and the US Law)

Document Type : Original Article

Authors

1 Associate Professor of Private Law, Faculty of Law, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.

2 Master of Private Law, Faculty of Law, Farabi Campus of Tehran University, Qom, Iran.

Abstract

Fictitious litigation that is often biased by the plaintiff (whether principal, counterpart, entry or third party, or in the form of objections and complaints), includes any claim at the initial stage or even at the stages of the appeal (retrial, third party appeal and appeal), the purpose of which is to harass the other party, delay the process of processing the main lawsuit, delay the execution of the final verdict, obtain a deadline for the plaintiff in the lawsuit and take the opportunity from the other party. In the jurisprudence of Common Law, which pays more attention to fictitious lawsuits and seeks to reduce these types of lawsuits, fictitious lawsuits are defined as not being caused by any judicial or substantive reason. The main question is whether studying the Federal Law of the United States can provide solutions to reduce litigation and defenses by litigants and their attorneys. This article tries to explain the management of fraudulent lawsuits in legal courts based on the jurisprudence of Iran and the United States and to provide the necessary solutions to the judicial system of our country.Although the US Law has a broad view of fictitious litigation and defense, the Iranian Law lacks sufficient tools to reduce fiction. For example, in the Iranian Law, a lawsuit that qualifies as a counterclaim after the issuance of a final judgment in favor of the plaintiff is not excluded by the defendant (the convict against the first lawsuit). It is also not prohibited in Iran for the defendant to express her defense during the proceedings and later to file the same defenses as an independent lawsuit and disrupt the execution of the final judgment issued in favor of the plaintiff. However, measures to reduce litigation and litigation costs and prevent the abuse of litigation must be carefully considered. The result will be an increase in the quality of the proceedings and a reduction in the density of cases in the judiciary. 

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References

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Judicial procedure in Iran:
Award No. 1212-03-08 1996 Branch 186 of Tehran General Court.
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Basch v. Westinghouse Elec. Corp., 777 F.2d 165 (4th Cir. 1985).
Cowles, Julia K. “Rule 11 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure and the Duty to Withdraw a Baseless Pleading”, Fordham Law Review, Volume 56, Issue 4, 1988.
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Weil, Robert I && Brown Ira A., Cal. Practice Guide: Civil Procedure before Trial (The Rutter Group California Practice Guide), 2021, p. 10:4.

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History

  • Receive Date: 28 April 2021
  • Revise Date: 22 May 2021
  • Accept Date: 22 August 2021

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