While I certainly believe that non-meritorious lawsuits are bad news and that no lawyer worth his salt should pursue such claims, I'm equally resolute in the belief that there is a huge difference between a plaintiff suing someone on completely baseless grounds and a plaintiff who legitimately believes what they're doing is right even though someone else may not agree with them. Despite the fact that it has become incredibly popular to label any lawsuit that one doesn't agree with on a personal level as "frivolous," I think that this is an incredibly flawed position to adopt because it ignores one rather important fact: If we could all agree on what "fairness" is there wouldn't be any need for a court system in the first place.
I can think of no better way to illustrate this than the Great Plastic Cutlery War of 2015.
Two camps emerge.
Everyone in our office eats food. This is a fact that all parties to this matter could agree upon. Many foods require the use of utensils. This fact too was undisputed. Where the lines were drawn centered on whether or not it was "a big deal" to help oneself to the disposable plastic forks, knives, and spoons that were brought into the office by one's coworkers.
In the interest of impartial reporting and full disclosure, I should make it clear that I brought my own plastic cutlery, so I was, of course, in the camp that thinks it's wrong for one of my coworkers to simply help themselves to my utensils without asking permission. I'll gladly share if someone asks, but there are few things more frustrating than finally convincing myself to bring my lunch to work rather than grabbing a burger from the restaurant next door only to find that I can't eat my lunch because some Selfish Stanley had already blown through the entire box of sporks I purchased several weeks prior.
I was not alone in my position. In fact, several other coworkers found themselves the victims of butter knife bandits and plasticware plunderers, and the problem became so widespread that eventually we decided to settle it like adults. And by that I mean that we all made passive aggressive comments under our breaths until eventually someone got their feelings hurt bad enough to allow the whole thing to boil over into a heated discussion. I'm mostly kidding, but not entirely.
Though the entire matter was certainly trivial and barely worth the mental energy expended, it really rubbed some of us the wrong way that certain coworkers had such little regard for the fact that we work hard for the income we use to buy things, even silly disposable things, that they would ever feel bold enough to just take what isn't theirs and then have the audacity to get offended when we suggested that they shouldn't do so.
If I were capable of true objectivity, this would be the part of the article where I explained the other group's point of view, but I'm afraid that I can only get partway through the sentence, "They didn't think that it was a problem because the value of the items they were taking was insignificant," before I start saying things like "selfish" and "shortsighted" and "how could anyone think that you can justify taking something from another person without permission on the grounds that what you stole was not very valuable?" so I'll just take the high road and illustrate my unwavering maturity by not even attempting to explain their ridiculous, un-American, and utterly indefensible position (see what I did there?).
Resolution
Being that I'm the boss, I had to do my best to divorce myself from the fact that I was pretty frustrated with having my plastic forks pilfered, and I figured I should instead try to come up with a plan that made everyone happy and wasn't a total morale killer. I learned long ago that resolving petty matters among employees who were upset with each other was never truly petty, since the one who felt like they lost would always have a hard time getting over it, and, sometimes, the employee who "won" would inaccurately believe that they had won favor with the boss man. That's bad news when all employees need to be treated like equals. No matter what, though, I knew that a blanket decree that favored either side would go over like a lead balloon.
So, rather than issue a decree without hearing everyone out or making people feel cornered in one-on-one meetings, I instead gathered the fourth floor employees to have an open discussion about what the official policy should be. Should everyone bring their own stuff and not take from their co-workers? Should everything brought into the office be fair game? Should food simply not be allowed into the office at all? Should all of our employees be replaced by robots or highly trained orangutans, neither of which would ever have any need for silverware?
Keeping the discussion focused on what the policy should be rather than on accusations being volleyed back and forth was challenging. As the two camps did their best to state why they thought the other side was wrong, it became painfully clear that each side was equally convinced that they were right, and that this issue was most certainly the proverbial hill that they were all prepared to die on. I didn't like where this was going for morale, so, in the end, I made an executive decision that plasticware is now an office consumable (like toilet paper, hand soap, etc.) to be provided at the company's expense. It solved the problem, allowing our employees to return to the task of helping the legal team kick tail in the courtroom. Mission accomplished.
This fork fight is the justice system in microcosm.
If you think about it, this whole dust up is a perfect metaphor for America's justice system. You have two people or groups of people who can't see eye to eye on something, so they ask a higher authority to intervene. That much is obvious.
But more important than illustrating what our court system does, this silly little issue brilliantly summarizes why it is so necessary that the court exists, and that is that even among smart, good-natured people who all like one another, it's impossible to come to a consensus as to what constitutes fairness in every situation. When one person feels that they have been wronged, society can either tell that person to pipe down or they can acknowledge their freedom to ask for a higher authority to hear the matter. America went with the latter approach because it's the only approach consistent with the idea that we are all free and equal citizens, and thank God we did.
But what about legitimately frivolous cases? Thankfully, our courts are equipped to dispose of truly vexatious cases and to punish those who file arbitrary actions against their neighbors (a fact that everyone seems to forget when the subject is brought up). But you can't both comprehend & appreciate the idea that free people have the right to access the courts AND simultaneously hope to keep people you disagree with out of the courts. My friends, such differences of opinion are precisely why the courts exist.
Disclaimer: While this article reflects an actual dispute among various employees at GLO, it was never really a big deal. I'm mostly just bored sitting at the airport waiting on a flight, so I figured I'd prove a point about public perception of legal cases and take a couple free jabs at my coworkers who used all my doggone spoons.