On Mon, 2008-01-07 at 07:16 -0500, Lee Jenkins wrote: > That is a really good point. I filed suite (pro se) against a utility > company > and pursued it all the way up to State Supreme Court over a 3 year period > with > many motion hearings in between small claims, district, appeals and finally > supreme court. I lost of course, but while it was not my intention or > motivation for litigation, I know for a fact it cost them quite a bit to > defend > against the suit, even though the suit never really saw itself in a court > room. >
And that is also why I am for tort reform in the US. Its too easy to to pull these types of tricks and its not an uncommon one in the big bad world of business, where corporations file suits just to try to dry up the opposition. Its going on now in the telecom industry, it has happened with SCO over Linux, and its going to continue to happen until there is real tort reform that makes it more painful to bring a silly case. Not saying that yours was, although if no lawyer would take the case, and you lost, it is likely that it didnt have the best merit (generally with pro per cases, one where you represent yourself, judges give more leeway). > Cost me about $500.00 total between filing fees, serving involved parties, > etc. > I understand it cost them upwards of $200K to defend. There is some > satisfaction in knowing that they will probably think twice before doing > again > what precipitated the suit in the first place. $200k seems a bit high, although they have to answer it or risk a default judgement. The appeals probably are what added to that, its not uncommon for a 'first round defense' where the plantiff has at least someone in the shadows helping with writing briefs and such, and a 'face value case' (one that doesnt get a summary dismissal) to cost $25-50k. So its all about economics, this is why lawyers refer to suits for $5000 or less as 'frivolous suits' and generally will instruct their client to just settle because it will be cheaper, even if they win. A small group of people doing something like this could do serious bottom line damage to a company, and unless you can show that they acted together in a conspiracy (not in the legal sense) knowing their cases had no merit it is really difficult to actually get any of that money spent back. If you can get summary dismissals it becomes easier but quite often judges wont do that instead letting a jury decide. Now the rules change if you have staff legal, like say microsoft or google. Their lawyers are on salary and are paid whether or not they litigate, so it does not cost extra aside from filing fees and such to goto court. Infact it is to a point a waste of money if you have them on salary and dont use them. Smaller companies, even ones who may have millions per year in gross revenue, may not have competent legal on staff, and if they do and you can file in a different state (say where you are over a defective product as an example) you can make them come to you, and if their lawyer isnt bar certified in that state and cant get a waiver then they have to contract it out, which is an added expense over the travel costs. This is how many took on paypal and won over fees and such. Paypal usually would try for a venue change to give them a larger advantage, and you a smaller one, but that often doesnt fly because service is delivered locally. -- Trixter http://www.0xdecafbad.com Bret McDanel Belfast +44 28 9099 6461 US +1 516 687 5200 http://www.trxtel.com the phone company that pays you! _______________________________________________ --Bandwidth and Colocation Provided by http://www.api-digital.com-- asterisk-biz mailing list To UNSUBSCRIBE or update options visit: http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
