Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #champerty
Most recents (2)
When a giant company wrecks your life, what are you gonna do? They can hire more and better lawyers, and they have people whose sole job is fighting off suits - are you gonna beat those people by suing as as a side-hustle? Do you wanna be a full-time, professional litigant?
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2023/06/06/tha…
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pluralistic.net/2023/06/06/tha…
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For some people, the answer is yes: some people are angry enough, or sufficiently morally offended, to make suing a giant company their life's mission. Sometimes, they succeed, and force companies to cough up gigantic sums of money.
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Early in the 19th century, philosophers like Bentham railed against #champerty, whereby "unscrupulous nobles and officials lent their names to bolster the credibility of doubtful and fraudulent claims in return for a share of the property recovered."
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty… 1/
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champerty… 1/
On its face, the practice of inviting investors to back litigation against deep-pocketed, corrupt parties sounds pretty good. 2/
Large corporations and wealthy individuals have enormous litigation warchests that allow them to abuse people with impunity, using their cash to draw out lawsuits until their victims run out of money for lawyers. 3/
