Did SCO Get Linux-mob Justice?

An anonymous reader writes "According to Fortune's legal blogger Roger Parloff, "once in awhile a judicial ruling comes down that's so wrong at such a basic level that you're just left scratching your head". He claims that Judge Kimball's "102-page ruling (about SCO) was greeted with widespread rejoicing and I-told-you-so's", but "the problem is not that Judge Kimball's view of the facts is wrong". Was the ruling unfair?"

Comments

Re:No.

[timster]

he never claimed they were or weren't guilty, just that from the evidence it probably should have gone to trial.

And that is just a flat-out stupid thing for him to say. There was no evidence! SCO invented this absurd "methods and concepts" legal theory out of whole cloth, but that's not evidence.

Re:No.

[NMerriam]

Well, TFA seems to disagree with your interpretation

Well, TFA is a troll who doesn't know what he's talking about. Copyright law is very, very, VERY clear on this -- there is no such thing as a transfer of copyright unless there is a written, explicit transfer of copyright. And even then, there are situations where explicit transfers can be made null and void, and situations where transfers can be undone years after the fact.

Basically the writer is claiming that the judge is somehow obligated to entertain a novel new legal theory with no basis in law, and that it is "unfair" for the judge to rule on the law as it is clearly written.

Well "mob justice" is rhetorically over the top

[hey!]

Unless you can show judge Kimball was intimidated by the number of people on Slashdot who hate SCO, it's irrelevant that they do. It's a free country and you can hate anybody you want.

TFA does raise a rather more interesting point: did the judge have legal authority to dismiss the case as he did in the ruling.

Novell asked Kimball to grant a summary judgment. A summary judgment is a ruling by the judge on the elements of the case where there is no legally relevant factual dispute. If I sue you for promising to fly me to the moon for $100, and you admit that you did, there is no factual dispute, only a legal one of whether such a promise is binding. However, if you deny making that promise, we have two different versions of the facts. The judge can't grant me victory because he finds you less credible than me; unless we both agree to let him do that, it's up to a jury. On the other hand, if there was something about the promise that made it non-binding in that (e.g., it was "opposite day") the judge could summarily rule for you, because none of the facts in dispute are relevant.

So the question is whether the judge simply ruled the factual disputes were not relevant to the claims, or whether he improperly took the role of jury and decided to favor one set of evidence as more credible than another. Or maybe he did a little of both, which would be par for this case.

Ultimately, SCO is going to lose because it won't have the money to appeal this decision. If the decision was a proper one that's all to the good. If it were an improper one, then that is a situation any of us might find ourselves in some day, fighting a richer opponent and at the mercy of a judge that favors that opponent.

It's good news when the bad guys get defeated fair and square. It's not entirely good news if they are defeated by biases in a system we depend upon to be fair.