Fighting dirty can involve looking reasonable to the outside, e.g. being willing to lie or bend the truth and distracting from the key issues of the matter—these can all be done civilly.
But while I can certainly see failing “to engage in apparent good faith” is like an understandable reaction, it doesn’t really feel like a central example of “remain[ing] reasonable throughout the process”
Fighting dirty can involve looking reasonable to the outside, e.g. being willing to lie or bend the truth and distracting from the key issues of the matter—these can all be done civilly.
But while I can certainly see failing “to engage in apparent good faith” is like an understandable reaction, it doesn’t really feel like a central example of “remain[ing] reasonable throughout the process”
They reasonably chose to disengage with the process that was miserable for them and had a low expected pay off.