Civil suits, as this one would be, are decided by a judge on the "balance of probabilities". Each side will tell their story and present what evidence they have to back it up. The judge will decide which story is less fishy and they will win the suit.
After that, either side, win or lose, has the opportunity to file a separate suit for costs. Automatically granting costs to the plaintiff or the defendant after the judgement would prejudice the case.
It would prevent a less than well-funded plaintiff from from bringing suit in the first place for fear of being charged costs against a much better resourced defendant.
Yea, but that's kind of the idea.
Only suits that have legitimate claims should be brought to court. Ambulance chasers talk people into filing bogus suits with a one in a hundred chance of winning. As long as the attorney is working under a contingency, what would a plaintiff have to lose?
My Uncle was sued for racial discrimination years ago. He rented an apartment to a black lady who stopped paying her rent. He lived in Washington state at the time.
In retaliation, she filed a discrimination suit. She knew he'd have to fly back to Cleveland to fight it, and of course the legal costs which he had to eat. The court ruled in his favor, but the thousands it cost him with flights back and forth from Washington to Cleveland and attorney costs, she got her revenge and it didn't cost her a nickle.
I'm sure you are familiar with the case here of Tamir Rice. He was the 12 year old that pulled a realistic gun on a police officer and was shot dead because of it. The grand jury didn't indict the officer because he acted in self-defense and had no idea the gun was a toy. But the city of Cleveland gave his fat pig mother 5 million dollars because (like most cities) they feared a higher cost fighting the civil case.
The list goes on and on. If you are wealthy and famous, you have a target on your back for women making false claims if sexual attacks that happened many years ago. In most cases the defendant just pays them off to make them go away, but that only encourages the next set of bimbos to do the same thing.
Back to the OP: There are too many things wrong with this story for it to be believable. But I'm sure she got a hold of some ambulance chaser to take the case (or they contacted her) and win or lose, it won't cost her a thing. In the meantime, it will cost Fifth Third tens of thousands of dollars to fight the claim if it is (as I suspect) pure BS.
www.cnn.com
