0 the act of using a lawyer or a court to help settle a disagreement, etc. that you have with a person or an organization:
He threatened to take legal action against me over a comment I had made about him on my blog.
1 the process of using lawyers, courts of law, etc. to solve disagreements, or an occasion when this happens:
legal action against sb There will be no legal action against the healthcare trust.
threaten (sb with) legal action Employers who hire illegal immigrants are being threatened with legal action.
take legal action (against sb/sth) Lenders do not generally take legal action until the borrower is three months in arrears.
begin/launch/bring legal action (against sb/sth) The European Commission launched legal action against two member states.
face legal action Several leading national newspapers now face legal actions for libel.
the threat/prospect of legal action The threat of legal action is the latest twist in an increasingly bitter dispute between management and unions.
have grounds for legal action Lawyers say the company probably has grounds for legal action under the Trades Description Act.
costly/further/possible legal action He declined to comment on the situation further because of possible legal actions.
Before that, tort law only allowed direct victims to initiate legal action against a polluter.
The chief of them is an expectation of epistemic rationality that limits occasions of harm requiring legal action.
These measures were carried out independently of legal action in some cases, and as a way of affecting the implementation of legal decision in others.
They may, however, lead to legal action being taken by those affected.
Yet those affected failed to take any legal action against the government.
Note that this makes the cost of legal action very low.
A study of patients and relatives taking legal action.
If people had observed the intent of the clan regulations, no such additional recommendations as official notices, discouraging legal action, would have been necessary.
