Judge Slams SCO's Lack of Evidence

An anonymous reader writes "News.com has reported that the federal judge overseeing the SCO Group's suit against IBM has voiced loud skepticism about SCO's case. "Viewed against the backdrop of SCO's plethora of public statements concerning IBM's and others' infringement of SCO's purported copyrights to the Unix software, it is astonishing that SCO has not offered any competent evidence to create a disputed fact regarding whether IBM has infringed SCO's alleged copyrights through IBM's Linux activities," said U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball." Commentary available on Groklaw as well.

Comments

it is about time

[53cur!ty]

more judges should do this and perhaps people would think before they sue

Re:it is about time

[mwood]

Unfortunately that whooshing sound you hear is SCO jumping on this statement as evidence of bias so they can get the case moved or restarted or somehow stave off their inevitable failure a bit longer.

Much though I agree with the judge's sentiment, I wish he had saved it for his memoirs.

Loser should pay

[bigtallmofo]

Until the U.S. adopts a "loser pays" court system similar to the UK, these types of exploratory frivolous lawsuits will continue.

Imagine if on the other hand SCO had to pay for IBMs entire legal defense to their frivolous lawsuit after they lost. This lawsuit never would have seen the light of day.

Re:Loser should pay

[Entrope]

The US legal system does have recourse for someone who is wrongfully dragged into a lawsuit and wins. There are several related torts; malicious prosecution and abuse of process are two of the major ones.

Depending on state law, you can sue the original plaintiff and attorney if there was no reasonable basis for the original claims, and be awarded your costs for both actions. It is not automatic, and therefore encourages reasonable actions rather than conservative actions. A bigger part of the problem is the gullibility and emotion of juries.

Even if the malicious plaintiff goes bankrupt, their attorney(s) may be on the hook for your costs -- the attorney is supposed to know all the facts that support the plaintiff's case, and provide proper counsel as to the likelihood the plaintiff would have prevailed.

Judges _can_ judge

[redelm]

Judges MUST start out a case totally unbiased.

But they don't need to end up that way. In many cases, they should end up pretty negative towards one party. That's the basis for judgement.

All dislike is not prejudice. Some is well founded.

You want to change the system?

[Anonymous Coward]

A little verbal smackdown won't do it. Instead if lawyers start getting disbarred for acts of senseless sophistry, lying and embezzeling. That will force a little forethought into the profession.

Prep remarks

[redelm]

I see these remarks as preparatory to a final demand for precise complaint and evidence (lines of code) under threat of summary judgement.

I think a judge has to make these sorts of remarks to withstand appeal of summary judgement. First IBM asked, and received naught. Now the Court is asking. If it receives not, then summary judgement or dismissal with prejudice becomes warrented. IANAL

Re:Judge Jackson, back from the grave

[ValentineMSmith]

...But this judge is making the same mistake that Jackson did in the Microsoft trial.

Do not blast the litigants until the trial is over.

This isn't quite the same thing. The thing that Judge Jackson got in trouble for was "blasting" Microsoft in an interview outside the courtroom. He was provoked, but the things he said in that interview crossed the line. Judge Kimball is simply doing his job at this point: he's ruling on motions and actually doing SCO a favor by saying that, if they don't produce more evidence, they'll soon be finished. While this was a "blasting" of SCO, the blasting was done where it should be done: not behind the litigant's back where they couldn't reply. It was done in a ruling based on the evidence presented.

I suppose you could say that it is showing bias, but it's bias towards the truth.

"Loser pays" would not deter SCO

[dcavanaugh]

Considering main benefits of the lawsuit from a SCO point of view:

• Cash from MSFT & SUNW
  
• Postpone bankruptcy
  
• Pump the stock so as to create an escape path for investors
  
• Hopes and dreams of a buyout
  

In this case, losing the lawsuit will bankrupt the company, no matter who pays the cost. If you accept bankruptcy as inevitable, and you get all of these benefits with a frivolous lawsuit, where is the deterrent? Unless the SCO gets the royal smackdown from the SEC and a whopper shareholder lawsuit, Darl and his buddies will parachute to safety.

Get the champaign out

[greppling]

I think the paragraph just after the one quoted in the /. summary is even better:

...despite the vast disparity between SCO's public accusations and its actual evidence -- or complete lack thereof -- and the resulting temptation to grant IBM's motion, the court has determined that it would be premature to grant summary judgment [in favour of IBM].

I am not even a paralegal, but these seem pretty strong words to make by a judge before he has decided a motion. Sounds like starting to count down the K.O.

SCO's bluff is called

[saddino]

I have always believed that SCO was well aware that the merits of their case, in terms or real evidence (not just a handful of "similar" header files), was not sufficient to win in court.

Darl McBride and his minions decided to go for the gambling "long-shot" that so many litigants see as an ample victory: getting the defendant to, in a cost-benefit analysis, decide its better to settle out of court.

In SCO's case, their gamble had a nice silver lining: not only could IBM decide to settle, but in doing so (or if others believed they would do so), SCO could then easily extract miliions upon millions in licensing fees from Linux installations during and perhaps after the suit. Clearly, they tried to do this and from the numbers, failed miserably.

So, SCO put all it's money on black to get in the black, and their number is increasingly looking red which of course will put them in the red, and effectively out of business.

That's what happens when you gamble without a whit of common sense.