How Can You Use a Malicious Prosecution Lawsuit to End Frivolous Probate Lawsuits?

Uncategorized • Nov 13, 2015

Are you currently serving as the trustee or personal representative in West Palm Beach? Does the other side, or beneficiaries keep filing frivolous lawsuits against you? You may have a cause of action against them for malicious prosecution! If a West Palm Beach lawyer told you that these were barred because of the litigation privilege, that may not be the case following a recent case out of the Fourth District Court of Appeal.

What is Malicious Prosecution

Without getting into legalese, malicious prosecution used to be a cause of action used when a prosecutor made criminal charges that were unfounded and aimed to harass.
Now this cause of action has been extended into civil matters.
You can make it against an individual who is abusing the right to sue and injuring you as a result.
Previous Courts in West Palm Beach have held that this cannot be used in civil matters due to a so called litigation privilege.
So what does that mean?

The Litigation Privilege

Have you ever heard the term litigation privilege?
This is a rule of law that is based on the tenets of defamation.
Basically it is unlawful to say defamatory things about someone and to publish them, but this can make litigating awfully difficult.
So the Courts have held that defamation does not apply to actions filed in Court.
That is a pretty broad privilege.
See how that could pose a problem if you want to sue an ungracious beneficiary for filing countless lawsuit against you in probate court?

Edwards v. Epstein

In this case the trial court held that a party could not bring a malicious prosecution case because of the so called litigation privilege.
This was despite the fact that the law in Florida is quite clear – that you can bring a malicious prosecution claim against someone for filing actions in civil court.
Now the law has become slightly more clear and settled, the litigation privilege does not bar a claim for malicious prosecution as a matter of law.
How does this change your probate litigation plans in West Palm Beach?

Want to learn more?

Check out the entire case by clicking here.

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