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All the info is on http://www.taubmansucks.com/ or google "Henry Mishkoff" or watch http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ITE7ITSR6M.

reading through some of the motions, that does strike me as the one. I had never read all of the court briefs, just the final summary. This page is probably the most relevant to me: link. I feel bad for that guy! He definitely lost out on a lot of money defending himself. If Mishkoff ever reads this, thank you thank you thank you for sticking up for yourself (and setting a legal precedent for jokers like myself).

Was it the Taubman v. Mishkoff case?

I'm going to pop back up with this link again. The first 6-12 months of this case had nothing to do with the truth and mostly revolved around the plaintiff trying to bamboozle the defendant into slipping up with some paperwork so they could apply for summary judgement on a technicality (even going as far as to apply for summary judgement because, although the defendant had replied to and opposed various plaintiff motions, had not replied to the original complaint within 6 weeks or whatever) and getting injunctions, without the defendant knowing about them, (which had no relation to the actual case other than to try and strangle the defendant's trying to get support from the world at large) and which came into force so soon that the defendant (living a few 1000 miles away) hadn't actually received the documents by the day that the injunction was to come into force.
You want to try and fight a case against those kinds of tactics?

Courts have as much to do with the truth as pheasant hunting has with protecting worms from pheasants.

And here's another example, http://www.taubmansucks.com/, this guy was sued over a trademark issue by someone who had no case. A year later he finally won, and got the costs of engaging a lawyer back.

Well, actually, I had a free lawyer, Paul Levy of Public Citizen. The costs I recovered were what I think are called "court costs" - filing fees, copying expenses, and so on. I did not recover other costs, such as the money I had to pay to fly Paul to various hearings. At one point, I bought Paul a cheap (non-refundable) ticket to fly to Detroit to depose some witnesses - but at the last second, Taubman canceled the meeting. Paul asked Taubman's attorney, Doug Sprinkle, to refund the cost of the tickets, since they were non-refundable and Doug had canceled a scheduled meeting to which we had both agreed. Doug's reply: "Perhaps in the future you should purchase full-fare tickets which permit greater flexibility when traveling." I assume that this was Doug's subtle way of rubbing our faces in the fact that we were strapped for cash (and were not going to get our expenses paid even if we won), while his client had virtually unlimited resources. (On the other hand, we eventually won the case, which I suspect was even more satisfying than getting nasty little digs in from time to time.)

What I don't understand is why I would have had to pay Taubman's legal costs if they won, but they didn't have to pay mine when they lost. It really doesn't seem very fair.

and if the defendant has, say, had to sell their house to cover their legal expenses in the mean time. Will they get the associated costs of moving out of their house and storing their property paid? And if their kids have had to do without, say, new clothes and had to suffer bullying because they've been wearing hand-me-downs, will they be compensated? What about the months of sleepless nights, family breakdown, complete loss of life outside of work/courtroom?
My cousin is a lawyer (in Britain, when the winner normally gets their costs from the other side) and he was explaining to me when I challenged him about contract law and 'valueless considerations' (such as promising not to sue for something that they wouldn't be able to successfully sue you for anyway) that even if the other side has no case you won't get all the costs incurred in defence back.
And here's another example, http://www.taubmansucks.com/, this guy was sued over a trademark issue by someone who had no case. A year later he finally won, and got the costs of engaging a lawyer back. Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to engage a lawyer at the start so had to defend himself. He's a consultant. When he was buried in legal documents, he couldn't work. (from act115) "I probably lost tens of thousands of dollars in potential billings;" - did he see any of that? nope. Work you do to defend yourself is free - if you want to be paid, be a lawyer.

Suing someone without a case is extortion in all but name. Infact it's worse than extortion. If you try to extort me by coming around with a baseball bat, I'd be allowed to take your head off with a big sword, if you did it with a court I have to roll over and take it, or end up in jail/dead.
What do you think about the judge who's suing a dry cleaners for $65million over a lost pair of trousers? if he wins outright they'll be ruined. If he wins 1% of what he's suing for they'll be ruined. Even if he doesn't win, the hidden costs that they've incurred (maybe the stress has caused them to make mistakes and damage other people's trousers) will be close to ruinous (assuming, then, that they get their costs back, which given that they did misplace his trousers, isn't guaranteed). How does that NOT fit the common definition of 'extortion', just because his enforcers have badges and are lead by a man in a wig and a toy hammer?

This guy tried just that and almost ended up losing everything had not a do-gooder attorney (oxymoron?) stepped in. Our legal system is designed to keep lawyers in the rich, not for the benefit of you and I.

That is the way some of the corporations work (especially Mattel). But there are exceptions, if you can get help. Look at Paul David, he got the ACLU to help and Mattel paid over $1M in legal fees to the ACLU. There is also the EFF. http://www.taubmansucks.com chronicals something similar.

Mattel tried to shut me up, but I fought and they lost.

Did you happen read the judge's order [.pdf]?

To the extent Candy Chan has incurred legal fees in this action, such fees are primarily the results of tactics designed to impede the ability of Plaintiffs to prosecute this action in an efficient manner. In addition, the Court finds that the reason Plaintiffs have repeatedly filed motions is because Candy Chan has not agreed to fairly simple mechanisms which would accomplish the same objectives that the filing of motions has accomplished. Therefore, Candy Chan's request for attorney fees is denied.

Sorry for my lack of legal education, but is the judge's sole reason for denying the "motion to have the plaintiff pay the defendant's legal fees" the fact that she defended herself aggressively and stalled the plaintiff where possible? Isn't that what you're SUPPOSED to do when some idiot files a bullshit lawsuit?

I wonder about the competance of this particular judge. I spent several hours reading about a case where he was the judge. Some guy in Texas created a fansite devoted to a shopping mall down the road from him. For some unknown reason, the mall's owner sued him and Zatkoff got the case.

Nearly every ruling this judge made in that case flew in the face of common sense, totally ignoring facts to rule in favor of the plaintiff. He even made up reasons to rule the way he did, ignoring arguments from both sides. He even did some investigating of his own (which I would think is illegal), didn't enter it into evidence in any manner, and then used that as a reason to rule for the plaintiff. Nearly all of his rulings were overturned on appeal for being improper. The case finally ended when the mall's owner realized he wasn't going to win and he withdrew the lawsuit.

They had a fan site for a local shopping mall. The mall developers tried to shut them down (for some inexplicable reason), so as part of defending themselves they registered several "sucks" domains including http://www.taubmansucks.com/ (Taubman is the name of the developer).

The guy was trying to defend himself for a long time and started to get dug into a hole, but eventually he found pro-bono representation and ultimately they won. Maybe there's some useful ideas for you in there.

Yup. I've done lots of research about gripe sites because of that C&D.

On a side note someone at farmers reads /. my hits from them are higher than normal :)
-nB

They had a fan site for a local shopping mall. The mall developers tried to shut them down (for some inexplicable reason), so as part of defending themselves they registered several "sucks" domains including http://www.taubmansucks.com/ (Taubman is the name of the developer).

The guy was trying to defend himself for a long time and started to get dug into a hole, but eventually he found pro-bono representation and ultimately they won. Maybe there's some useful ideas for you in there.

I'm all anti-walmart and pro-reform for copyright/patent/trademark.

(And you really need to check this saga out, which contains a lot of evidence about law and precedents.

I seem to remember one criteria being whether averageconsumers would mistake the site for the legitimate walmart site. The screenshots on the PDF certainly give the impression that a person who is not looking too closely might easily make the mistake. The problem was that the parody was too subtle.

That doesn't get walmart off the hook though.

http://www.taubmansucks.com/Act108.html

Apple registered itunes.com in August 1998, though. Over two years before Cohen's domain.

So why didn't Apple register itunes.co.uk?

And how long before we see a http://www.taubmansucks.com/-type site, but saying itunessucks.co.uk? (They can't use itunessucks.com - that's already taken - registered December 22nd of last year). Mind you, itunesreallysucks.com IS available as of midnight. So, any takers?

Check out this site.

This guy set up a not-for-profit site about a local shopping mall. 2 years later, the developer of the mall sued him for his domain name. The conduct of the lawyers who sued him is disgusting.

See Taubman sucks for a domain name dispute that was heavily documented. Hank Mishkoff fights off Taubman over an issue over "The Shops at Willow Bend". Has lots of good stuff on "safe distance", Lanham Act, Trademarks, etc.
He wins in the end but it's quite the battle.

How about an "Ask Slashdot" with Hank Mishkoff of www.taubmansucks.com and/or Paul Levy of Public Citizen? Their fight and eventual win against Taubman and their crooked lawyers (just read the account and you'll see -- they're lying and distorting throughout the process, and frankly I find it amazing what they *get away* with[0]) is not only important in itself, but the way Hank documented it is an inspiration to all. It provides real insight into fighting a corporation out the crush you.

Great work by the team of Public Citizen; Press Release (Won appeal)

Here's an article in the Dallas Observer about the case -- check the spin Taubman tries! (third paragraph from the end)

[0] Maybe we should Ask Slashdot with Julie from Gifford-Krass-Groh-Sprinkle and ask her how she sleeps at night. "Great", I guess :-\

Maybe you should go read Taubman Sucks! about a fansite for a local shoping mall in Texas.