One Battle After Another: The Lockjaw Litigant and Vexatious Litigation in Family Court

By: E.A. Putman

My entire household was sick last week. Allergies. Sinuses. Pho. Gatorade. The kind of sick that forces you to slow down even when your brain refuses to cooperate. I hate being sick. My body rests, but my mind files motions.

So I watched a movie.

I had just finished Killers of the Flower Moon on a flight — and that film? Incredible. History. Power. Greed. The collision of law and exploitation. Give me that all day.

But One Battle After Another? The title alone sounded exhausting. I’m a Black female lawyer with a five-year-old clone. Every day is one battle after another. I don’t need cinematic reminders.

I decided to give it a try, and somewhere between shootouts, overturned vehicles, and a man who refused to die, I realized this wasn’t just about conflict.

It was about obsession.

*Semi-Spoiler Alert* Colonel Lockjaw is the antagonist of the film. He is disciplined in his refusal to stop. This man was shot in the face, car flipped and presumably dead and yet — staggering down the road, determined to continue.

That scene stuck with me because I have seen that walk before.

Not on a battlefield, but in a courthouse hallway.

The “LockJaw” Litigant

There is a category of litigants who do not know how to disengage. The judge has ruled. The appeal failed. The modification was denied. By any reasonable measure, the issue has been decided. And yet another filing appears— bloodied but not deterred.

That is the Lockjaw litigant.

And one has to ask–at what point does advocacy become obsession?

Some litigants don’t want a resolution because a resolution ends the conflict. They want engagement — the hearing, the motion, the response. In a culture that rewards attention via “like, subscribe, and share,” even litigation can become validation. Being “in court” starts to feel like significance, and conflict becomes that person’s identity.

When the Law Finally Steps In: Vexatious Litigants

The court system is designed to resolve disputes, not to host them indefinitely.

Chapter 11 of the Texas Civil Practice and Remedies Code allows a court to declare someone a vexatious litigant if they repeatedly file lawsuits or motions without a reasonable chance of prevailing, or if they keep trying to relitigate issues that have already been decided. (See Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 11.054.)

If that finding is made, the court can require the person to post security before moving forward (§ 11.055) and can prohibit new filings without advance permission from the local administrative judge (§ 11.101).

In practical terms, the court can impose a stop sign.

This designation is not handed out casually. It carries real consequences, including placement on the statewide list maintained by the Texas judiciary:

👉 https://www.txcourts.gov/judicial-data/vexatious-litigants/

The reality, though, is that many relentless litigants never quite cross the statutory threshold. They file strategically. They lose narrowly. They stay just inside the line.

And so the battle continues.

The Difference Between Advocacy and Obsession

There is a difference between advocacy and obsession. Advocacy is disciplined. It is grounded in facts, anchored in the law, and directed toward a defined outcome. It recognizes when a court has issued a ruling and evaluates next steps within the structure of that decision. Obsession, on the other hand, becomes disconnected from resolution. It treats every ruling as a provocation and every denial as a reason to continue.

Not every persistent litigant crosses that line, and courts are careful when evaluating patterns of repeat filings. But when litigation no longer advances resolution and instead keeps a case in perpetual motion, the purpose of the process is lost. The courtroom is not meant for one battle after another. It is meant to end them.