The paranoiac, while he may harbor the most intricate and well-organized system of delusions, still remains approachable to us, and intellectually may be not only on a par with the average normal individual, but not infrequently gives the impression of being his superior. Nevertheless, this usually well-endowed human being at a certain point in his career goes off at a tangent and spends the rest of his life in the pursuit of a phantom. The paranoiac, starting out with vague, ill-defined ideas, succeeds in elaborating, step by step, a well-organized system of thought, of ideas which finally assume an all importance in the conduct of his life and remain unshakable.
Kraepelin[2] defines this condition as a mental disorder which is essentially characterized by a gradual and systematic evolution of a well-organized and intricate system of persecutory and grandiose delusions. It is chronic and incurable in its course and does not lead to any appreciable deterioration in the intellectual sphere. The litigious form of this disorder is particularly characterized by a persistent and unyielding tendency toward litigious pursuits. It is for this reason that this form of paranoia is of particular interest forensically. The law is the tool with which these individuals work, and the Courts their battle-grounds. The least provocation suffices to start the stone rolling, launching the unfortunate upon a career of endless litigation. As a rule the disorder originates in connection with some adverse decision or order of the authorities, which the patient considers an unjust one. Whether injustice has actually been suffered by the patient matters not and remains absolutely of no consequence as far as the course of the disease is concerned. The paranoiac litigant is unable to see the law as others see it, and in this respect he does not differ greatly from primitive man, whose conception of legality is that of a collection of concessions for himself and prohibitions for others. To be sure, a tendency to excessive litigation is occasionally met with in what appear to be normal people. Such pursuits, however, become pathological when they are based upon a delusional interpretation of actual occurrences or upon actual delusions, and are not amenable to reason.