Why don't courts punish time-wasting tactics?

Question

Inspired by the lawsuit filed amidst an ongoing controversy in the chess world. In brief, one player (Carlsen) accused another (Niemann) of cheating, and Niemann filed a defamation lawsuit against Carlsen + two other defendants (Chess.com & Nakamura) in response. In an article about the lawsuit, the Chessbase writes:

On December 2, the legal counsel of the plaintiffs, notably Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, Danny Rensch, and Hikaru Nakamura filed a 25-page memorandum seeking a summary dismissal with prejudice of the lawsuit, citing irreconcilable flaws such as the inability to properly prove a conspiracy among the plaintiffs.

“It is so plainly without merit that it could have been brought only as a public relations stunt,” lawyers for Chess.com stated in the filing.

Carlsen’s lawyers added, “After years of trying to curate a reputation as the bad boy of chess, Plaintiff Hans Niemann wants to cash in by blaming others for the fallout from his own admitted misconduct.”

While it seems unlikely a dismissal will take place, this sort of maneuvering is standard and was to be expected.

Since a dismissal is unlikely, this is basically time-wasting. Why then do courts not punish this kind of time-wasting?

Although this question is inspired by this particular lawsuit, the question is more general, since as Chessbase writes, this sort of maneuvering is standard and was to be expected.

I've tagged this with united-states because the suit is being argued in a US court.

Answer 1

I haven't reviewed the filings, but I can tell you that it's perfectly routine for lawyers to describe the other side's position as "plainly without merit," with no regard for the actual merits. The lawyer's job is to make his client look good, in court and in public; the existence of this question shows that he's doing a good job at least on the latter half of that equation.

But in truth, it's such a generic thing to say that no lawyer who hears it will actually think it means anything.

In all likelihood, the filing is like most others, in that it makes a good case on some points and a bad case on others, and the opposing lawyer's job is to argue that all of them are bad.

In the rarer case that a filing is actually "plainly without merit," courts can and sometimes do impose penalties under Rule 11, which allows for sanctions against parties and attorneys who make factual assertions that are not supported by reality or arguments that are not supported by the law.

Answer 2

the court is mandated to accept these filings

The rules say, that they can't deny a party to file for every form of relief that isn't frivolous. It is never frivolous to request dismissal on the lack of merits. The proposition in that filing is pretty much proposing a yes or no statement to the court: Even if everything the party suing us is true, they have no case.

Ruling on that proposition can preserve enormous amounts of resources that would be spent on litigating in case - if the case really is without merit.

The lawyers on the other hand need to file any argument to preserve the argument for an appeal of the case. Punishing the party for filing a valid brief that poses the question if the case is meritless would not just be a misuse of the court's power, which just opens more avenues of appeal.

Sanctions are reserved for frivolous filings and real misconduct

Frivolous filings are generally arguments that could not even hold water if they were looked at in the light most favorably to the one bringing it. Like... "My dog ate my sister-in-law's son's homework one state west of us, because of which my boss stubbed his toe on the door of his office three states east and because of that I was late for court." - Absolute nonsense.

Or try heavy misconduct, like being a copyright troll that was outright lying to the court, violating a half dozen court orders and other misconduct. Yes, that's the gist of a court order that a certain Richard P Liebowitz was sanctioned for in a single court order in 2020. That Man had a long history of sanctions for bringing frivolous arguments and other misconduct before he was disbarred in November 2021. Or to say it differently, in the words of another judge of the same court, from a 2019 sanctions order:

Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that there is a growing body of law in this District devoted to the question of whether and when to impose sanctions on Mr. Liebowitz.

Answer 3

As it happens, this question was based on a wrong premise entirely, since the case was, in fact, dismissed, a result widely anticipated by legal commentators.

More generally, if the motion to dismiss were denied, the process would have moved to discovery stage, where plaintiff's team would get a right to subpoena defendants, such as for example interview them or request messenger logs. This is obviously a nuisance for defendant, and hence for that to happen, the lawsuit should meet some basic requirements - be filed by a right person in a right jurisdiction, and allege facts that, if true, would provide grounds for relief by a court. (Niemann suit had problems with all of the above, jurisdiction playing the key role in the decision.)

It looks like a fairly large percentage (about 77%, if I'm reading it correctly) of motions to dismiss is actually granted, so, generally speaking, "unlikely" and "waste of time" are incorrect characterisations.