Dyer, Eliphalet-66-67

If one person sues another when he has no cause of action, or when he has a cause of action and conducts the suit in such a manner as to make it unreasonably vexatious, as if he should take out an attachment for 1,000 pounds in an action of assumpsit or book debt, when he knows the debt is only 50 pounds, thereby cause to be imprisoned or put to expense or trouble in procuring bail, an action lies for the person who is thus unreasonably vexed or troubled. [Lecture was copied from Philo Ruggles.]