Trim sail at sea: a bad case (8)
I believe the answer is:
mistrial
'a bad case' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both acts as well as being singular nouns.
Perhaps you can see an association between them that I don't see?
'trim sail at sea' is the wordplay.
'at sea' is an anagram indicator.
'trim'+'sail'='trimsail'
'trimsail' with letters rearranged gives 'MISTRIAL'.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for mistrial that I've seen before include "Defective hearing" , "Invalid hearing" , "When it's declared, the case must be heard again" , "Voided legal case" , "Court case invalidated by procedural error" .)