A vexatious litigant is someone a court has formally restricted from starting or continuing legal cases because a pattern of past litigation was found to be abusive. It's not a casual insult. It's a specific court order that limits, rather than automatically ends, a person's access to the justice system going forward. This explainer looks at what the label means, how the restriction actually works day to day, and what it doesn't mean. It draws on a Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal decision, Oleynik, decided in 2026, as an illustration. What Does Vexatious Litigant Actually Mean? In law, a litigant is simply a person taking part in a court case, whether as the person who started it or the person defending it. Calling someone a vexatious litigant means a court has ruled that person has misused the litigation process, often by filing repeated claims that serve little real purpose other than to harass another party or relitigate matters already decided. The order doesn't ban a person from every future lawsuit forever.
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