Stopping Repeat Lawsuits: Strategic Litigation Tactics in Idaho

Nicole Hancock
Partner, Litigation

Abstract

Nicole Hancock, Partner in Stoel Rives’ Boise office, discusses how the firm helps clients push back against repeat or opportunistic lawsuits. She explains that in Idaho’s small plaintiff’s bar, certain entities can become targeted after large settlements, creating a pattern of claims that drain resources and reputations. Stoel Rives steps in when clients want to change the narrative—sending a clear message that they are not easy targets for litigation.

Hancock describes the firm’s approach: assembling experienced litigators, leveraging advanced technology, and strategically using Idaho’s prevailing-party attorneys’ fees statute to create early resolution leverage. She shares how this strategy has significantly reduced claims for clients like Western States, delivering measurable results. With Stoel Rives’ reputation for thorough, high-quality trial work, clients often achieve faster and more favorable outcomes, deterring future lawsuits and safeguarding their market standing.

Transcript

I am Nicole Hancock, and I am a partner in our Boise office. There are definitely some of our clients in our market that have faced repeat lawsuits, maybe not on the exact same topic but on similar or related topics. You can see that there is almost a trend with the plaintiff's attorneys where they think it is an easy mark. Usually that will follow if there are some big settlements that have happened. Our plaintiff's bar is not huge in Idaho and so you will see once they know that somebody has a propensity to settle a case, they might be more inclined to sue that entity again. We tend to step in for clients, even if they otherwise would have insurance—insurance that would cover defense, and we do not generally do that kind of work. We would step in when they are ready to set the precedent to say, “I need to send a message that says, we are not an easy target, and we do not want to be in a position where people are looking at us as if you file a lawsuit, we would be an easy settlement.”

We come in and we have very smart attorneys within our firm. We have fantastic litigators. We have really good technology. We have really good staff members that can support our trial teams, and so we can put the right team on the field to make sure that if there is an opportunity to bring them a win and really send a message to the community that this is not an easy mark, we are the team that does it.

We get brought in in those kinds of matters where our clients are done fighting this and we have really good examples: Western States is an example. We started doing their litigation several years ago and they had a big portfolio of claims. Those are now dwindled down to next to nothing and it is a measurable difference for them. Even if the claims are not large in size, the totality, or the cumulative effect of carrying the debt load or the financial burden of defending against all those claims, it is expensive. In Idaho, if there is a commercial transaction, the prevailing party is entitled by statute to recover their attorneys’ fees. That becomes a deterrent from filing lawsuits because you at least have to have a colorable claim or one that you think is likely to win. If you lose the case and it is a commercial transaction, you are susceptible or liable to the other side for paying their attorneys’ fees. That has only had a moderate level of success in maybe chilling people from filing claims. Oftentimes you get creative plaintiffs that will try and file a claim that characterizes a lawsuit as not being a commercial transaction to try and get around that. It is a successful measure for us that we have been able to deploy to be able to get an early resolution when you can poke holes in the validity of their claims or the merits of their claims because we have always the leverage to say we have the opportunity to recover our attorneys’ fees for our clients if you are unsuccessful.

I think that having Stoel Rives on the caption, it carries a lot of weight to be able to say, we have a credible reputation in litigation. People know that when we are on the case we are not going to do a job less than 100% and we make sure that we do a really good job for our clients. I think that it tends to get us an earlier resolution for our clients than they could otherwise get.