litigious
/lɪˈtɪdʒəs
/adjective
1Tending or too ready to take legal action to settle disputes: our increasingly litigious society...
- If you look at it year on year there is probably a move upwards - it is a more litigious society now and legal fees are more structured now.
- And all we're wanting to do is ensure that in a highly litigious city, in a highly litigious society, that we make sure as far as is possible, that lawyers bring cases that are reasonable and fair.
- But also a long-term cultural shift towards a more litigious society.
1.1Concerned with lawsuits or litigation.We may shake our heads and say sadly that this is a ‘litigious age,’ but our experience has been that only litigious processes guarantee the rights of all concerned....
- His litigious and tumultuous year away from football is also a concern.
- Inevitably, we must await judicial clarification of such words as purports to confer a benefit, but clearly there is room for litigious dispute.
1.2Suitable to become the subject of a lawsuit.
Derivatives
litigiously
- He gloated, in 1989, that he was ‘still litigiously alive to stop biographies’.
- That way you guys could save floundering swimmers and litigiously solve underwater fish murders.
- When oil demand and price slid in 1998, oil companies cut expenditures for exploration and production-and canceled drilling contracts, consensually or litigiously.
litigiousness
/ noun ...- The system is obviously working well since the litigiousness that plagues other countries is here only a patchy and sporadic affair.
- Architecture, litigiousness, hospital design, fox-hunting, foot and mouth, organic farming and genetically-modified foods - the list of his concerns is long and varied.
- Indeed, it is an area characterised by low investment and declining innovation, partly as a result of the climate of risk aversion and litigiousness, particularly in the USA.
Origin
Late Middle English: from Old French litigieux or Latin litigiosus from litigium 'litigation', from lis, lit- 'lawsuit'.