CHAMPERTY

champerty (cham-p<<schwa>>r-tee), n.[fr. French champs parti “split field”] 1. An agreement between an officious intermeddler in a lawsuit and a litigant by which the intermeddler helps pursue the litigant’s claim as consideration for receiving part of any judgment proceeds; specif., an agreement to divide litigation proceeds between the owner of the litigated claim and a party unrelated to the lawsuit who supports or helps enforce the claim. — Also termed (archaically) campipartia. Cf. BARRATRY; MAINTENANCE(6). [Cases: Champerty and Maintenance  14. C.J.S. Champerty and Maintenance, Barratry and Related Matters §§ 2, 5.]

“There is disagreement in the American courts as to what constitutes champerty. (1) Some courts hold that an agreement to look to the proceeds of the suit for compensation is champerty…. (2) Some courts hold that in addition the attorney must prosecute the suit at his own cost and expense to constitute champerty…. (3) Some courts hold even in a case like (2) that there is no champerty…. (4) All authorities agree that a contract for a contingent fee is not champerty if it is not to be paid out of the proceeds of the suit…. (5) In some states it is declared that the common law doctrines of maintenance and champerty are unknown … ; in some the matter is regulated wholly by statute…. [A]nd in most there is a marked tendency to narrow the doctrines of champerty or to evade them.” William R. Anson, Principles of the Law of Contract 294 n.2 (Arthur L. Corbin ed., 3d Am. ed. 1919).

“The rule as to champerty has been generally relaxed under modern decisions and a majority of courts now recognize that an agreement by which the attorney is to receive a contingent fee, i.e., a certain part of the avails of a suit or an amount fixed with reference to the amount recovered, is valid as long as the attorney does not agree to pay the expenses and costs of the action.” Walter Wheeler Cook, “Quasi-Contracts,” in 1 American Law and Procedure 129 (1952).

2.Hist. A writ available to the party who is the target of a champertous action.“Champerty is a writ that lies where two men are impleading, and one gives the half or part of a thing in plea to a stranger, to maintain him against the other; then the party grieved shall have this writ against the stranger.” William Rastell, Termes de la Ley 76 (1st Am. ed. 1812). [Blacks Law 8th]