The penalty for frivolous lawsuits is usually to pay the legal expenses of your opponent. This is an effective penalty to deter people trying to make money from filing frivolous lawsuits. It is not an effective penalty for filing frivolous lawsuits to delay projects.
It will be years before the lawsuit gets to that point, and if you are willing to trade money for a delay, the prospect of having to pay 2x the money for the same delay is hardly a deterrent.
> It is not an effective penalty for filing frivolous lawsuits to delay projects.
Again: it is your opinion that these are frivolous lawsuits, and that's fine. But there are probably just as many (or more) people that think that they are not.
A frivolous lawsuit is one that does not have merit, has no facts supporting it and usually isn't intended to be won. The lawsuit itself is the goal. These don't qualify as far as I'm concerned. Not even close.
It will be years before the lawsuit gets to that point, and if you are willing to trade money for a delay, the prospect of having to pay 2x the money for the same delay is hardly a deterrent.