champerty

Definition of champerty

Etymology

From Middle English champartie, from Middle French champart

Noun

champerty (plural champerties)

1. (law) investing money into an individual's law suit.

Further reading

In common law jurisdictions, maintenance is the intermeddling of an uninterested party to encourage a lawsuit.[1] It is "A taking in hand, a bearing up or upholding of quarrels or sides, to the disturbance of the common right."[2]

Champerty is the maintenance of a person in a lawsuit on condition that the subject matter of the action is to be shared with the maintainer.[3] Among laypersons, this is known as "buying into someone else's lawsuit."[4]

In modern idiom maintenance is the support of litigation by a stranger without just cause. Champerty is an aggravated form of maintenance. The distinguishing feature of champerty is the support of litigation by a stranger in return for a share of the proceeds.

- Lord Justice Steyn , Giles v Thompson[5]

At common law, maintenance and champerty were both crimes and torts, as was barratry, the bringing of vexatious litigation. This is generally no longer so as during the nineteenth century, the development of legal ethics tended to obviate the risks to the public, particularly after the scandal of the Swynfen will case (1856-1864).[6] However, the principles are relevant to modern contingent fee agreements between a lawyer and a client and to the assignment by a plaintiff of his rights in a lawsuit to someone with no connection to the case. Champertous contracts can still, depending on jurisdiction, be void for public policy or attract liability for costs.

References

1. Curzon, L.B. (2002). Dictionary of Law (6th ed.). London: Longman. pp. 260. ISBN 0-582-43809-8.
2. Coke (1641) Institutes
3. Curzon, L.B. (2002). Dictionary of Law (6th ed.). London: Longman. pp. 61. ISBN 0-582-43809-8.
4. EconomicExpert.com: Champerty
5. [1993] 3 All ER 321 at 329
6. Pue, W. W. (1990). "Moral panic at the English Bar: Paternal vs. commercial ideologies of legal practice in the 1860s". Law and Social Inquiry 15(1): 49-118. doi:10.1111/j.1747-4469.1990.tb00275.x.

Further reading

• Rancman v. Interim Settlement Funding Corp., 99 Ohio St.3d 121 (2003)
• "VENTURE CAPITALISM FOR LAWSUITS? Why It Doesn't Exist, And What Alternatives For Financing Exist Instead"
• "The Continuing Struggle Over Litigation Funding"
• "Defense of champerty no longer valid in South Carolina"
• "Ethics of Law Loans in the Post-Rancman Era"
• "Broad prohibition, thin rationale: The "'acquisition of an interest and financial assistance in litigation' rules"
• "Selling Your Torts:Creating a Market for Tort Claims and Liability" 33 Hofstra L. Rev. 1543
• Burton, F. et al. (2007). PIBA Personal Injury Handbook. London: PIBA/ Jordans. pp. 719-720. ISBN 978-1-84661-054-7.
• Winfield, P. H. (1919). "The history of maintenance and champerty". Law Quarterly Review 35: 50.