The evidentiary threshold for establishing that an applicant 'may have a cause of action' under O 26A r 4 must be assessed proportionately to the character and ambit of the relief sought; it would infringe the proportionality principle to require evidence sufficient to establish a prima facie case on each element of each prospective cause of action. Loss of a commercial opportunity (here, to recover and rehire vehicles) may constitute sufficient loss for the jurisdictional threshold even without evidence of the state of the relevant market. The scope of discovery sought is critical to the proportionality assessment — discovery that would cost more than the value of the claim will ordinarily be refused, but narrowing the scope can overcome this objection.
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