Abuse of process

An abuse of process is the unjustified or unreasonable use of legal proceedings to pursue a cause of action, arising when a party claims that an opponent is misusing or perverting a properly issued civil or criminal court process for a purpose the underlying legal action does not justify. In common law systems, abuse of process is a tort distinct from malicious prosecution, addressing the misuse of the public's access to the courts. Most common law jurisdictions require showing both an ulterior purpose behind the use of the process and an improper act in employing that process beyond what regular proceedings call for to establish it, and unlike malicious prosecution, abuse of process generally does not require proof of malice, lack of probable cause, or a favorable outcome in the underlying case. This description is adapted from Wikipedia contributors under CC BY-SA 4.0; changes were made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/