Our judicial system abhors frivolous litigation. Accordingly, most states have statutes designed to make people think long and hard before they run around filing baseless lawsuits. If you don’t have a legit cause of action and you file a lawsuit that has no basis in law or fact, the Court has the authority to award all of the attorney’s fees (including pre-judgment interest) incurred for purposes of defending the lawsuit. In addition, for those lawyers that just can’t resist taking money from dumb asses that they know have no actual claim, many such statutes provide for an award against the lawyer. For example, here in Florida we have Section 57.105, Florida Statutes, which provides in relevant part:
(1) Upon the court’s initiative or motion of any party, the court shall award a reasonable attorney’s fee, including prejudgment interest, to be paid to the prevailing party in equal amounts by the losing party and the losing party’s attorney on any claim or defense at any time during a civil proceeding or action in which the court finds that the losing party or the losing party’s attorney knew or should have known that a claim or defense when initially presented to the court or at any time before trial:
(a) Was not supported by the material facts necessary to establish the claim or defense; or
(b) Would not be supported by the application of then-existing law to those material facts.
The moral of the story here is that before someone leads you down the garden path and hands you a gun to shoot yourself with, you might want to get some advice from an actual and reputable attorney. If you think you’ve lost money now, imagine having to pay those big fat legal bills. Lawyers are just not cheap. Ouch.