Laches:
A defense to an equitable action, that bars recovery by the plaintiff because of the plaintiff’s undue delay in seeking relief.
Laches is a defense to a proceeding in which a plaintiff seeks equitable relief. Cases in Equity are distinguished from cases at law by the type of remedy, or judicial relief, sought by the plaintiff. Generally, law cases involve a problem that can be solved by the payment of monetary damages. Equity cases involve remedies directed by the court against a party.
Types of equitable relief include Injunction, where the court orders a party to do or not to do something; declaratory relief, where the court declares the rights of the two parties to a controversy; and accounting, where the court orders a detailed written statement of money owed, paid, and held. Courts have complete discretion in equity, and weigh equitable principles against the facts of the case to determine whether relief is warranted. [The Free Dictionary]
Noted “Perhaps the Dumbest Argument Ever Made in Emergency Petition to the Supreme Court Appears in Pennsylvania Election Case,” Rick Hasen, Election Law Blog:
Over the weekend I wrote about the Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court decision to block a ridiculous lawsuit filed by a Republican state senator in state court which argued that the expansion of absentee voting done in 2019 by the Republican state legislature, including the plaintiff in the suit, violated the state constitution. It was a ridiculous suit for many reasons including laches: if you have a problem with an election rule, you cannot wait until after the election is run to see if you like how the election came out before suing. The state Supreme Court unanimously agreed that any kind of relief that would disenfranchise voters who voted using the system approved by the legislature would be impermissible.
That’s Republican law these days. It’s either predatory, stirring up the base, or it’s bloody incompetent.
