maintenance and champerty

maintenance and champerty

two former torts and crimes striking at a third party's support of another's litigation. Maintenance is the stirring up of litigation by supporting a party without having a just cause or excuse for so doing. Champerty is where the person maintaining is to be paid out of the supported proceedings. Both were abolished as torts or crimes by the Criminal Law Act 1967.
References in periodicals archive ?
The requirements of standing have safeguarded the court system from being subjected to unwarranted claims and unworthy parties, yet exceptions to standing have created the need to further expand these protections; while the doctrine of maintenance and champerty pre-dates the standing requirements, it was adopted to prevent the courtroom from becoming a trading floor for claims and frivolous litigation by disinterested third parties.
The modern common law doctrine of maintenance and champerty finds its origins in medieval times and was structured to protect ethics in the legal profession.
FINANCIAL REGULATION--The Ancient Doctrine of Champerty and a First for the New York Court of Appeals
(33.) Id.; see, e.g., William John Tapp, An Inquiry into the Present State of the Law of Maintenance and Champerty Principally as Affecting Contracts 20-24 (1861).
Probate lending
The court declared the practice of advancing funds secured only by an interest in a pending lawsuit--and in this case, at a rate exceeding 180 percent per year--to be maintenance and champerty, both of which are prohibited by state statutes.
Surprisingly, none of the lower courts considered the issue of maintenance and champerty, instead agreeing with Rancman that the transactions were illegal under state usury laws.
Lawsuit financing is illegal, Ohio high court says
Magoon: In 1910, the Hawaii Supreme Court enforced a contract which "appears to be of a champertous nature" because "[t]he conditions of society under which the law of maintenance and champerty originated no longer exist." 20 Haw.
Making champerty work: an invitation to state action
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