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Massachusetts Appealing Microsoft Ruling
linuxwrangler writes "Criticizing the "loophole-filled deal" and saying "We are prepared to go it alone," Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly has announced that Massachusetts is appealing the Microsoft ruling. Seven other states have dropped out and are negotiating enforcement and attorney fees. West Virginia is still undecided on an appeal."
Appealing a ruling is certainly not trying someone twice for the same crime. What's happening is that they are taking the case to the next level of the appeal process. Happens all the time, all the way up to the Supreme Court of the US. This has nothing at all to do with trying them twice. In fact, they've been found guilty. What the argument is over is the punishment.
Think of it this way. Someone negligently drives their vehicle into your house (Happened here last week, a semi lost control and took out half a house. Everything else in the example is made up.) Now let's pretend that the driver was forced by the company to drive 12 hours a day, clearly against the rules. The trucking company's insurance refuses to pay. You take them to court and allege 1) that their employee knowingly violated trucking rules and regulations 2) that the company knew their driver was breaking the law 3) that the company forced them to break the law and 4) that the driver was on company business at the time of the accident. The jury finds in your favor. The trucker, his company, and their insurance are all found liable. Then the judge says, "You get a dollar out of this to pay for your medical bills and to rebuild your house, and the company can continue to break the rules." First, you'd be pretty po'd. Second, you'd appeal the judges ruling to a higher court. Which is exactly what's happening here.
The AP wire story offered a bit more explanation as to why Tom Reilly, the Massachusetts Attorney General, is appealing the Microsoft antitrust case ruling:
"Reilly characterized the settlement between Microsoft and the federal government, which a U.S. district judge approved earlier this month, as a ''loophole-filled deal'' that won't affect the software maker's aggressive practices or send the appropriate message.
''Microsoft has been found to have repeatedly violated the antitrust laws,'' Reilly said. ''We believe that remedy must send a message that breaking the law does not pay.''"
It may ultimately prove futile for Massachusetts to send this message to Microsoft, but it is worth the attempt. The only other way that Massachusetts can send a message to Microsoft is by replacing Microsoft products with other vendors' commercial or open source products.
It's always a good idea to know what you're talking about.
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the strongest word is still the word "free"
Her injuries were extraordinary -- 2nd and 3rd degree burns. The coffee burned her skin off. I like to think I'm reasonably educated, yet I had no idea that a cup of hot coffee could cause damage requiring skin grafts. I've certainly tucked a cup of coffee (or, from McD's, a hand grenade) between by legs, more so in older cars that did not have the godsend of cup holders. For people too lazy to read the article, The McD's coffee was roughly 50 degrees hotter (190F) than the coffee people brew at home. Water at 120 is hot enough to scald in 30 seconds, and the higher you go the faster it is.
There is no real need for the coffee to be that hot, except to convenience McD's which doesn't want coffee to cool too quickly sitting out, and doesn't want annoyed customers coming back. So they consciously made a business decision to scortch the occasional patron -- and got the ire of the jury for this. The food service industry responded to the decision by lowering coffee service temps.
She initially offered to settle for slightly more than her medical bills. This was not a gold-digger.
The punitive award WAS excessive. The jury was evidently pissed and exceeded its power, but in its defense consider that a punitive damage is supposed to hurt -- hence punistive or punish -- and how much does it take for a behemoth like McD's to even notice? The judge properly intervened to reduce it radically, by over 2/3 (my memory of the numbers differs from what the linked article says). The plaintiff then had a choice whether to retry the case or take the remittitur. The point is that the system worked.
I used to laugh at this case, too. Until I got a real accounting of the facts halfway through law school, not the bullshit blindered version reported by the media and trumpeted by the conservative critics who would like to gut tort law. The only thing good about them is that most did not know the truth either, and negligently parroted what they had heard somewhere, an urban legend. With the internet it is more difficult to get away with this sort of propagandizing.
"how effective would any settlement including any "enforcement" techniques (read the last para of the article) actually be, considering the stance of the Fed and the other states?"
Ultimately, their opinions don't matter. It's a federal court, so if Massacusetts wins this appeal and gets harsher punishments out of the process, the results are binding nationwide, Ashcroft or no Ashcroft.
"how much money will this cost Mass taxpayers? (glad I don't live there)"
The MA Attorney General is a full time job. The salaries of everybody involved will be paid whether they're pressing their appeal in this case or not. The only real "cost" on the commonwealth's part is the price of putting people on this case that could be working other cases.
"when is the DA position up for grabs? (i.e.: how many votes is this person trying to suck out of people?)"
Will this be an election issue? Would this help or hinder the incumbent in the next election? Is it possible that the DA is doing this out of principle, at least to some extent?