We often hear about “frivolous lawsuits” burdening our court dockets. This is just overblown media hype; frivolous claims are prohibited under Ohio law, and are very rare.

RC 2323.51 (effective 2001) prohibits frivolous conduct of any kind in the filing of a civil action.  ”Frivolous conduct” is defined in the statute as follows:

• Conduct that serves merely to harass or maliciously injure another party, or is for another improper purpose;
• Conduct that is not warranted under existing law, cannot be supported by a good faith argument for a change of existing law, or for the establishment of new law;
• Allegations that have no evidentiary support or are not likely to have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery.

So the next time someone tells you that we need to crack down on frivolous lawsuits, tell them we already did, about a decade ago.