Frivolous litigation crushes the courts and trades off with other cases
R. Hewitt Pate & Paul S. Hates 6, R. Hewitt Pate, Counsel of Record, Paul S. Hayes, Hunton & Williams LLP, “Brief of Amici Curiae Economists in Support of Petitioners,” BELL ATLANTIC CORPORATION, et al., Petitioners, v. William TWOMBLY, et al., Individually and on behalf of all
Additional judicial resources would be spent handling cases with conspiracy claims that meet the “parallel behavior is enough” standard. These include expenditures for personnel and other judicial resources. They also include the opportunity cost of the federal judiciary’s time. Assuming the federal courts (and their facilities and staff’) cannot expand to meet the additional litigation that would result under the “parallel behavior is enough” standard, the federal court dockets would become more congested. Other matters would receive less attention from the courts. The litigants in these other matters, and ultimately society, would suffer from the diversion of judicial resources to unmeritorious conspiracy claims. Businesses would also spend resources defending unfounded conspiracy claims. These costs would include direct litigation expenses such as hiring lawyers and handling document production. More importantly, they would include *14 the opportunity cost of management and staff time spent on litigation rather than on business matters.12