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Notes -
The lawyer metaphor reminds me a bit of the discussion ymeskhout brought up comparing TWA Flight 800 as compared to certain sanctionable lawsuits, and what I contrasted with the Subway Tuna lawsuit allegations.
From a lot of points of view, all of these lawsuits had what a serious literal reader would consider were made 'recklessly or in bad faith'. And I don't just say that given what's happened since in Krick: even at the time, it was clear that several core claims, including one that ymeskhout highlighted, were presented with either ignorance of their context or willful misrepresentation, and that a good many others were paraphrased commentary from randos taken as gospel truth.
Some of that difference in treatment is politics, and the electioneers are treated as a dire threat while Krick is a tragic sob story. But I think there's something deeper.
There Are Rules, some explicit and some the sort of thing that are like describing water to a fish. It matters if your phooney balooney claims are things that would be in the possession of a specific named other party you've sued in this case, or if they're something that would require 'discovery' of an unrelated third party. It matters if you've got an affidavit from one rando with credentials or a dozen without. These change the extent courts can interact with matters, and also the extent that they'll treat you seriously.
But these norms aren't about what's 'real' or not, or even if they're not-intentional-lies.
That's not even limited to things like lying or not. I've got an effortpost brewing on how some politicians are Nice and some aren't, and how little it has to do with them actually being kind, even to the people around them, and it has a lot of overlap.
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