July 19, 2011 12:19PM 

# Shocker Reported from Delaware Judiciary 

By [Walter Olson](https://www.cato.org/people/walter-olson) 

---

<a class="js-popover-trigger cursor-pointer popover-trigger" data-bs-placement="bottom" data-bs-trigger="click" id="popover-trigger"> 

SHARE 

</a> 

“\[The\] Delaware \[court system\] is now almost actively hostile toward cases they think are without merit,” Widener lawprof Larry Hamermesh [tells the *Wall Street Journa*l](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/07/19/delaware-judges-making-plaintiffs-lawyers-earn-it/), regarding flimsily based suits in which lawyers [seek to block corporate mergers](http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2011/01/10/first-comes-the-deal-announcement-then-comes-the-lawsuit/) and then collect fees when the target agrees to settle in order to get the deal done. Imagine that — *almost* actively hostile. If this keeps up, are lawyers supposed to hold back on unmeritorious cases, and only file the meritorious sort? Wouldn’t that be, like, monotonous?

##### Related Tags 

[Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) 

[![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) 
This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).