Legal Definitions - chicanery

Chicanery

Chicanery refers to the use of clever but dishonest tactics or trickery, often involving legal or political maneuvering, to mislead someone or gain an unfair advantage.

Here are some examples of chicanery:

• During a complex lawsuit, one party's legal team repeatedly filed numerous frivolous motions and requests for information, not because they were genuinely needed for the case, but to intentionally delay proceedings and increase the opposing side's legal costs. This strategy aimed to exhaust the opponent's resources and pressure them into a less favorable settlement.

  This illustrates chicanery because the legal team employed deceptive and manipulative procedural tactics to gain an unfair advantage in the litigation, rather than engaging in legitimate legal argumentation.

• A car dealership advertised a vehicle at an exceptionally low price, but when a customer came in to purchase it, they were informed that the advertised price only applied if they also bought several expensive, unnecessary add-ons and a high-interest loan from the dealership's preferred lender. The initial advertisement was designed to lure customers in under false pretenses.

  This is an example of chicanery because the dealership used a misleading advertisement and hidden conditions as a deceptive trick to entice customers and manipulate them into a more profitable, less transparent deal.

• In a local election, a candidate's campaign staff created a fake social media account that impersonated a local news outlet. Through this account, they spread subtly false information about their opponent's policy positions, making them appear extreme or unpopular, without directly attributing the claims to their own campaign.

  This demonstrates chicanery as the campaign used a deceptive online tactic to manipulate public perception and gain an electoral advantage by misleading voters about their opponent.