1. Vexatious incitement to litigation, esp. by soliciting potential legal clients. • Barratry is a crime in most jurisdictions. A person who is hired by a lawyer to solicit business is called a capper. See CAPPER(1). [Cases: Champerty and Maintenance 4(.5), 5(.5),
9. C.J.S. Champerty and Maintenance, Barratry and Related Matters §§ 25–27.]
2. Maritime law. Fraudulent or grossly negligent conduct (by a master or crew) that is prejudicial to a shipowner. [Cases: Seamen 14; Shipping 61. C.J.S. Seamen §§ 30–32; Shipping § 159.]
“[S]ailing out of port in violation of an embargo, or without paying the port duties, or to go out of the regular course upon a smuggling expedition, or to be engaged in smuggling against the consent of the owner, are all of them acts of barratry, equally with more palpable and direct acts of violence and fraud, for they are wilful breaches of duty by the master. It makes no difference in the reason of the thing, whether the injury the owner suffers be owing to an act of the master, induced by motives of advantage to himself, or of malice to the owner, or a disregard of those laws which it was the master’s duty to obey, and which the owner relied upon him to observe. It is, in either case, equally barratry.” 3 James Kent, Commentaries on American Law *305–06 (George Comstock ed., 11th ed. 1866).
3. The buying or selling of ecclesiastical or governmental positions.
4. The crime committed by a judge who accepts a bribe in exchange for a favorable decision. Cf. BRIBE. — barratrous (bar-[schwa]-tr[schwa]s), adj.
