I wouldn't be surprised if taking scientific disagreements to court (!) is a general modern trend but I have no overview at all of this phenomena. But one sees it occasionally. Hopefully it is not common. It is a sign of industrial and/or political intimidation of researchers. Maybe in some cases it is an instance of some special snowflake getting hurt, but actions like these require big bucks, so I do not know if that is ever the case. However, snowflakes assisted by politicians and/or courts is not something that would surprise me if it existed.

Today I happened to read an example.

I got reminded of some Swedish researchers that claimed (and I assumed showed) that polygraphs are not based on science and got threatened by legal action. Which was already indicated by the fact that few countries use it, as far as I know.