Raven, I truly believe you are not lying because that would mean you were intelligent enough to understand what you read. But I'm going to do something really nice for you. I'm going to spend one post's worth of time to write something I think there's at least a chance you'll be able to comprehend.
Let's say you and Lucky Girl meet in a Vegas one day, and after a wonderful night on the town (platonic of course) you make a pact with her that if any meanie on Silicon Investor sues her, you'll pay whatever money it takes to get the case tossed out. Lo and behold, evil Mr. Bill gets pissed one day that you belittled his military service in Nam and sues Lucky for defamation, tortious interference (she interfered with his business) and trademark infringement (that funny picture she posted of Bill had his corporate logo on it).
Lucky then calls you, yelling and screaming about how Bill totally took her joke the wrong way, that he was just looking for an excuse to sue her to shut her up, and she looks forward to wiping his ass in court. You, being an honest guy (cough), assure her you were serious about what you said that night in Vegas about paying her legal fees and, the very next day, you hire a prestigious law firm for her. You file a reply saying you want the case immediately dismissed because what Lucky posted was just a joke, that she never intended to make fun of Bill's business, and she certainly wasn't planning on making money off using Bill's logo.
Bill, being a real SOB, replies that he had gotten some nasty calls from vets, that a client complained to him, and that he knows for sure your true intent was to put his picture on T-shirts and sell it. What bald-faced lies you say! Then you realize that the suit was filed in California so you can immediately ask that it be considered a SLAPP suit. The judge says, well, maybe, but only part of it because you the trademark stuff is a federal, not state, cause of action. SLAPP suits, as of now, can only be used to toss out state causes of action. In other words, the best you could do is just get a couple of claims tossed out, but not the entire suit. How ridiculous is that, you say. Why should state vs. federal make any difference when all the charges are bogus anyhow?!
At his point, you realize you've spent $60K on lawyers fees and you still haven't gotten close to discussing the case on its merits. In fact, just to appeal the part about the anti-SLAPP statute not applying to federal causes of action will probably cost another $20K. If you lose, you are back to square one. If you win, all you've accomplished is allowing yourself the opportunity to have the entire case considered a SLAPP suit. There's still a decent chance that evil lying Bill will convince the judge his reputation and business were truly really hurt and thus the case is not frivolous and thus not a SLAPP. Then, once again, it would be back to square one.
You then call your friend Olivier and ask him how much time and effort and money it takes to get a case to trial. He tells you how many years he's been trying in his own lawsuit to get to that point and, had he paid a lawyer, it would have cost him mid six figures by now.
At this point you decide to gaze into your crystal ball. You imagine you and Lucky sitting in the courtroom as the judge reads the verdict. Not Guilty! Hip hip hooray! You imagine a night of intense partying, followed by a taxi home (to separate addresses of course), followed by passing out on your respective beds fully clothed. Then you imagine waking up the next morning to read a congratulatory email from Lucky's lawyers-- how they couldn't have done it without you. You then click on the attachment. It's a final itemized statement of the money they've been periodically deducting from that special savings account you've been saving for retirement. The total withdrawn is low six figures. You gasp. It took you years and years of parking cars to accumulate that much money. And now its gone. But, hey, you won! Was it worth it? Was it worth low six figures to beat evil lying Mr. Bill in court?
Before you have a chance to contemplate the answer, the phone rings, and you snap back to reality. It's Lucky's lawyers. They just got off the phone with evil Mr. Bill's lawyers who say they are willing to settle if Lucky pays them something in the low five figures. They know how much you loathe Mr. Bill but say you have an obligation to pass that on to Lucky.
So you call Lucky. She's been having similar dreams of crushing evil lying Bill in court and partying afterwards. Except, in her dreams, there's no itemized bill attachment to her congratulatory email. So, naturally, Lucky is pure adrenaline. Settle with evil Mr. Bill? HELL NO! Not only will she crush him in court, she going to counter-sue his ass after that and take him to the cleaners! You get pumped up again.
The next day you talk to Lucky's lawyers about a counter-suit. You want to know how much they think you can make off counter-suing Mr. Bill. They say of course they'd love to keep sucking money from your account, but want you to think hard about whether Mr. Bill truly felt Lucky had defamed him and interfered with his business, and thus brought the suit in good faith. You have two thoughts: 1) Bill is a pathological liar... and thus he'll just lie again about really truly thinking he had been harmed, and 2) Bill is not a liar, he's just insane... and thus he honestly did think he was harmed. Either way, you risk not only losing a counter-suit but twice as much of your hard earned money. Damn legal system, you tell yourself. Why can't it be loser pays? You are not feeling too good right about now.
The phone rings. Good guess; yes, it's Lucky. She spent the entire night doing research on evil Mr. Bill. She wants you to help her put that in a fashion that could be used when you get to discovery. Suddenly, all that you envision are dollars flying out of your account... never to return. OK, yes, it would be nice to hear the words "not guilty", but then what? At what cost? It's not Lucky's hard-earned money that's disappearing. It's yours.
You politely tell Lucky that you really truly support her and sympathize with her. But remind her you only agreed to pay whatever it takes to get the case tossed out. You never agreed to see it through to a trial, let alone beyond. Therefore, if you can get evil Mr. Bill to drop the entire lawsuit immediately, you'd have saved yourself many many tens of thousands of dollars... with exactly the same end result. Furthermore, you'd have that much more money in your account to use on other SI friends that might get sued, or better yet, a yacht. Since it's not Lucky's money, and since she has no desire to spend her own money (money she'll likely never see again) on lying Mr. Bill, she has no choice but to relent.
Bummed, Lucky calls Olivier for advice. Olivier has a brainstorm. True that Lucky can't control your largesse, but she can control her demands. In other words, if evil Mr. Bill wants money to settle, it will come with a big non monetary price: Lucky will only agree to settle the case if Mr. Bill not only drops every single charge and promises never to make them again, but also consents to having the entire settlement agreement made public so all the world knows the real truth about his spurious allegations.
As it turns out, although evil Mr. Bill is worth millions and likely could have continued the suit indefinitely, the bad publicity is screwing up his business. The press has made him a laughingstock. He just wants out as fast as possible, so he accepts Lucky's demands. And the case is settled and dismissed. And all the world knows about it. And if all the world doesn't understand, that's their problem, right?
Cheers.
- Jeff |
