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iPod Lawsuit Lawyers Sue Their Own Plaintiff?
Guinnessy writes "Jason Tomczak, who is mentioned as the lead to the iPod Nano 'Scratch' Class Action law suit
filed against Apple computers has published an open letter to the mac community. In it he claims that he never asked to be represented by David P. Meyer & Associates or Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, the lawyers in the case. He spoke to them once by phone about his scratched iPod case and asked that his name not be used. In fact, the two firms agree there is no signed document proving that Tomczak asked for representation. However, because Tomczak wants nothing to do with the case, David P. Meyer & Associates or Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro are currently suing him to try and stop him from pulling out. They also say Tomczak is legally liable for their fees if they lose the court case against Apple. Needless to say Tomczak isn't happy with the arrangement, and is likely to still lose thousands of dollars under the best scenario."
>...is likely to still loses thousands of dollars under the best scenario ...a loser-pays court system is the only reasonable way, like in the UK.
no wonder the USA legal system is so fucked if you can do no wrong, tell the truth, and still by charged money that is a significant part of your wages. whereas companies can provably break laws, be found guilty, and still be charged a meaningless fraction of their profit.
Your points are well taken, and if I were to guess, I'd guess this scene was incorrectly described. But I'm not convinced of Mr. Tomczak's dishonesty.
Unless you want to talk about the proper methods by which to balance the processor consumption versus memory bandwidth consumption of index generation algorithms using doubly linked list sectorization on Opteron processors, I can't think of what you could question me about for six hours that wouldn't intrude on my sense of personal-space.
As a lawyer you might find these things routine, but to the average citizen six hours of questioning by people with hostile intentions has to be a bit unnerving.
The statement, "...but they won't do it without knowing *everything* about you" seems self-disproving. That sounds like an assumption by a competent person about how these things should be handled. If they'd questioned him enough to know close to *everything* about him they would have chosen another lead plaintiff. The fact (if it is a fact) that they couldn't produce a single signed document from Mr. Tomczak to defend their (mis)use of his identity would seem to me to lend credence to the argument of that their research was cursory at best. I don't know what the minimum number of whiners have to be to start a class action lawsuit, but I'd guess it's several, and I find it hard to believe Mr. NoPaperwork was the best choice for a competent legal firm, when suing Apple.
"Discovery is expensive and damaging to a law firm." When you stated this you were making a good point about the reason for a motion to dismiss. But I empathize with the fact that it's proportionally more expensive for Mr. Tomczak. How much disposable income does he have to put toward this. He'd have to be pretty rich to just laugh off his likely expenditures thus far.
That the lawfirm he is fighting is just doing what is most likely to make them money seems obvious. I wouldn't vilify them for knowing how the game is played.
That said, it was their lack of proper research that caused this mess, and had they done this properly they could have (rightfully in my opinion) chosen a non-adversarial approach to solving this problem. For X thousand dollars (where X is a single digit number) I'll bet they could have purchased a statement from Mr. Tomczak that stated he would not be able to participate for "health reasons." This would seem a great excuse to amend their complaint. Real lawyers would come up with dozens of even better alternatives, that would have allowed them to continue to pursue the juicing of Apple. Instead, they acted as unmitigated jerks and ruined their grab for the golden ring.
The shortsightedness of their behavior is to me the most convincing argument against the assertion that Mr. Tomczak is being deceitful. I would counter that he views his legal predicament through a glass darkly.
To those who are posting home contact information of the attorneys involved in their case, and to those who are interested in contacting those attorneys:
You have every reason to want your voice heard, regarding this case. I am outraged at what appears to be happening. However - go through the proper channels to have your say. Contacting these attorneys *at home* is not appropriate.
Complaining to the attorneys through professional channels is okay, and filing a complaint with the proper legal governing bodies is even better. But if these attorneys receive harassing messages at home, this may be interpreted as a threatining action. Because of the pending lawsuit, this may come up in court and make the "little guy" look bad.
I am not taking the lawyers' side by any means. But think before you speak, so you don't add to the fella's pile of trouble.
Well, fortunately for everyone whether you believe him or not is irrelevant. I am pretty sure that every state requires that attorneys obtain an agreement in writing with a client. I know for a fact that California requires it. Either they have a written agreement or not. There is no middle ground. His intentions are completely irrelevant. The signed agreement is the only relevant issue of fact. If they cannot provide proof of one, then there is no dispute of fact.
The sad point here is that they are just trying to bleed him of financial resources using legal tactics. I think they are playing a dangerous game here for two reasons. First, a judge is very likely to sanction them really heavily and make them pay all costs if he can get it that far. Second, the California Bar will very likely discipline some of these attorneys if he files a complaint.
IAAL