Criminal and civil law
Kraut - If this type of activity was not an issue, it would not have been assigned the label---
Barratry, in criminal and civil law, is the act or practice of bringing repeated legal actions solely to harass. Usually, the actions brought lack merit. This action has been declared a crime in some jurisdictions. For example, in the U.S. states of California, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, barratry is a misdemeanor,[1] while in Texas, it is a felony.[2]
In England and Wales the offence was abolished in 1967. The term has also fallen into disuse in Australia.[3]
Barratry also refers to the act of soliciting legal business from potential clients based on a particular event not just solely to harass. For example, an attorney who stops at the scene of a car accident or follows an ambulance to an emergency room in hopes of finding and soliciting business from an injured and aggrieved person might be accused of barratry. The lawyer who practices this sort of barratry is called, pejoratively, an ambulance chaser.