Litigious Individuals

LITIGIOUS INDIVIDUALS (from Latin querulus- complaining), or sutyagi, represent a clinically and constitutionally heterogeneous group of mentally ill and psychopathic personalities united by the presence of the so-called litigious syndrome. The latter is characterized, on one hand, by the idea of legal injury, legal injustice, and on the other- by the desire to fight against the suffered injustice and at all costs to achieve restoration of one's rights. The starting point of litigious behavior of L. is often some real fact (collection, court decision not in favor of the subject, etc.), which is interpreted by him as excessive and obvious injustice, obliging protest. A long, persistent, constantly intensifying struggle begins through complaints, protests, initiating new cases, appealing to higher authorities, etc. Failures and refusals not only do not stop the patient, but further convince him of the biased attitude toward him by others. This gives rise to new protests, insulting outbursts against the court, accusations of judges in unlawful actions. There is an increasing inability to correctly understand one's and others' rights, an extreme overestimation of one's own interests with striking indifference to the interests and rights of others, and surprising credulity to everything that can be interpreted in favor of the patient. Representations associated with the court case acquire dominant significance, occupy a central place in the psyche, acquiring the character of overvalued ideas. In more severe cases, it leads to the development of delusional ideas, a persistent delusional system with the character of persecution delusions. A typical picture of the so-called "litigious delusion" develops. Delusional ideas are usually limited to the circle of representations associated with court experiences, and tend to involve in the sphere of delusional interpretation everything that has at least the most remote relation to the court case. Hallucinations are absent, but false memories are common, which are one of the sources of delusional ideas. The intellectual and emotional spheres are not sharply disturbed. Behavior is also formally correct, but within the limits of litigious actions it is inappropriate, often senselessly aggressive, when the patient, wishing to draw the attention of society or authoritative institutions and persons to his case, often resorts to violent and socially dangerous acts. The described syndrome can in specific cases vary considerably in degree, character and course: from mild cases with weak litigious behavior, low activity and short duration- to severe forms with persistent delusions, high activity and prolonged course (litigious delusion in the narrow sense). Pathological litigiousness and litigious delusion most often manifest in mature and old age, but depending on the soil and circumstances can also arise earlier. They always develop on the soil of pathological constitution. The pathological character of L. does not represent anything definite and specific, but they often exhibit self-confidence, conceit, egoism, stubbornness, hypomanic features, hysterical traits. The course of the disease depends to a large extent on external conditions: even in severe and prolonged cases, favorable judicial circumstances (elimination of causes of conflict, termination of the case, acquittal, etc.) can have a beneficial effect, up to recovery. Placement in a mental hospital, especially- prolonged, usually acts unfavorably, fixing litigious representations and feeding the affective reaction, although in individual cases it may prove necessary. Similarly, a severe constitutional basis, complexity and long-term unresolved legal conflict, age changes- all this can adversely affect the course and outcome of the disease. The doctrine of litigiousness and litigious delusion by no means can be considered complete. Its modern concept represents to a certain extent a compromise of the two main trends that have been fighting each other for the last 40 years. The first direction, going from Schüle, saw the center of gravity in the congenital predisposition to litigiousness, based on special properties of personality. The second, going from Hitzig, proceeding mainly from the study of severe, hospital cases and for a long time decisively predominating, considered litigious delusion as a subspecies of chronic paranoia ("litigious paranoia"), and cases of litigious behavior milder and with favorable outcome qualified as "pseudolitigants". However, the development of extramural psychiatry and the associated study of borderline cases, psychopathies and reactive states, familiarity with cases of litigious behavior in prisons and among those seeking pensions, the obvious connection of the onset of the disease with a real wounding experience and the obvious dependence of the course of the disease on external conditions prompted Kraepelin, and after him most psychiatrists, to separate litigiousness and litigious delusion from paranoia and to consider them as a form of reaction, as a psychogenic disease developing in connection with external circumstances on the soil of pathological predisposition. Only a few authors (Bleuler, Bumke) continue to attribute litigious delusion to paranoia.- Along with the described litigious syndrome (resp. litigious delusion), which has been proposed (Raecke) to be called "genuine", there are states of litigiousness observed in various mental diseases: schizophrenia, paraphrenia, progressive paralysis, epilepsy, arteriosclerosis, traumatic neurosis, and especially often in manic-depressive psychosis, which gave Specht reason to consider litigious delusion in all cases as a manifestation of this psychosis. From the so-called symptomatic litigiousness, developing episodically against the background of other pathological processes, it is necessary to strictly distinguish from independent, or "genuine" litigiousness. Litigiousness and litigious delusion have great significance in forensic-medical relation, since timely recognition and implementation of corresponding measures of social protection is important in the interests of the patient himself, the court and society.