17.5.5.1 Introduction

Tort claims have the advantage of applying to any creditor, collector, or collector’s attorney and of providing for punitive damages in appropriate cases. Malicious prosecution and abuse of process are both torts that apply to wrongful use of judicial processes. Malicious prosecution is the more widely accepted, highly developed, and difficult to establish of the two. Both apply to civil proceedings, with malicious prosecution sometimes labeled “wrongful civil prosecution” when applied to civil processes. Both torts are examined in detail in NCLC’s Fair Debt Collection.¹⁹¹