How To Take a Big Vendor To Small Claims and Win

snydeq writes "Gripe Line's Christina Tynan-Wood offers good news for those harboring grievances about faulty software or unfair licensing practices: it is in fact possible to take a big vendor to small claims court and win. But, as one woman's fight against Adobe demonstrates, detailed evidence and a deep understanding of the laws in question are essential to obtaining justice against big vendor lawyers. 'Evidence is the key factor,' explains one legal expert. 'Often the evidence people present does not show what they think it does. And they fail to make themselves aware of the rules of evidence so they can introduce any evidence they do have in court. These companies will have attorneys and those attorneys will use the rules of civil procedure to take advantage of your lack of knowledge.' Moreover, they will spare little expense no matter the magnitude of claims brought against them. 'The lawyer for Adobe tried an "end-user is stupid" argument,' explains the woman who took on Adobe over a software license she never had the privilege of agreeing to. 'But he gave that up when he learned I wasn't a lame-brain home computer user. I have a software engineering background and worked for Sun Microsystems and Fidelity Investments tech group.'"

Comments

Re:You have better odds in Small Claims Court

[Achromatic1978]

3) The defendant's attorney doesn't like what their client has done and is in fact helping me out.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this, but coupled with your other points, sounds like the defendant at the least should actually be dismissing their attorney, if not suing them for malpractice, if not talking to the police about having you both charged with conspiring to pervert the course of justice (if your jurisdiction allows such for civil procedures).

I'm all for 'sticking it to the man', but the fact you're in appeals, and boasting on Slashdot that the opposing legal counsel is "helping you out"... I'm not sure is such a good thing.

Re:My understanding

[flyingfsck]

However, there are various laws that may override that which you have 'accepted' - the constitution, the sale of goods act, contract law... That is why you need a lawyer. You need someone who knows the big picture.

The fact that this is newsworthy is sad.

[MindlessAutomata]

The fact that this is newsworthy and the law is such an enigmatic set of rules and ritual demonstrate just how flawed our democratic system is. How can you call anything remotely resembling justice if the playing field is so uneven that it's newsworthy that someone was able to take a big corporation to small claims court and win? Police often say that ignorance of the law is no excuse, despite very frequently either flat-out lying about what the law is or misunderstanding it themselves--remember, they aren't lawyers, and lawyers often get it wrong too because it's a convoluted jumbled mess of precedent and sometimes vague statutes. The law is a giant, incomprehensible tangle of mumbo-jumbo, with legal precedents being treated like magic spells (uttered in Latin, no less). And with this structure, who wins? Why, the ones with the resources to hire experts...!

In the words of a certain insanely underrated and clever kid's cartoon show from the 90's (Rocko's Modern Life): "You can't fight City Hall! You can't fight corporate America, they are big and we are small, you can't fight City Hall..."

Bad article

[Mr. Freeman]

This article is completely horrible. There's absolutely NO description about how EXACTLY this person won against adobe. All the advice given is "be prepared" and "research the law". Well no fucking shit, of you should read up on the law and be prepared when going to court. That's the entire fucking point.

What tactics did she use? What the fuck is an "end user is stupid argument"? What piece of the law did she use to win? What did she argue made the license null and void?

This article doesn't give me any hope about winning lawsuits against big tech companies at all. It's actually quite discouraging. There's no real information in the article which leads me to believe that perhaps this was actually a fluke and this person won due to something stupid. (i.e. the lawyer didn't show up to court because he mismarked his calendar.)

Having taken people to small claims before...

[Chas]

Taking them in and getting a judgement is the EASY part.
Actually getting your damages/awards from them is where it becomes tough.

Re:You have better odds in Small Claims Court

[guyminuslife]

The technicalities of the law in my state really says I have no chance what-so-ever of winning IF the attorney would have done more than the MINIMUM. Which is really what is needed in THIS case.

You really had better hope that the defendant doesn't read Slashdot. This is one reason why lawyers exist---to tell their clients to shut the fuck up about pending court cases.

Title should be "I took ...", not "How to ..."

[the bluebrain]

There are two points I take exception to:
(1) The title of this post, which should read "I Took a Big Vendor To Small Claims and Won". The product isn't named. The OS isn't named. The instructions from tech support aren't given. All it really says is "Oh yay it isn't easy and you have to be precise." You have to bring ample evidence to court and make yourself aware of how it will be interpreted? Oh my.
(2) The penultimate sentence: "Needless to say, I have not bought any other Adobe products. Even opening a PDF makes me nervous!" Now I'm not exactly the grand proselytizer of Adobe products - but I am aware that a large number of people are using their products professionally day in day out. This blanket statement implying that "Adobe == shit" just casts, to me, a rather dark shadow on the not-being-a-lame-brain bit further up.

Re:You have better odds in Small Claims Court

[snowgirl]

I had an argument (a.k.a. flamewar) with a guy recently here on slashdot about the necessity of lawyers.

He seemed to simply reject the idea that the law was complicated enough to require a specialized caste of individuals. He kept arguing that a layperson should be able to accomplish legal work without resorting to a lawyer.

I appreciate your account so much, because it provides a good amount of evidence to back up my claim: the law is that complicated, and while a layperson could do it, they have to spend a lot of time and effort on the matter.

Cases are not as easy as walking in and talking to the judge.

We pay lawyers so well to do this stuff, because they have less ramp-up time than we do.

On another note, yeah, a lot of lawyers are pretty piss poor at representing their clients in court. I remember one judge berating a lawyer in a restraining order case for attempting to make an argument directly against the New York Times prior restraint precedent. I suppose you get what you pay for when you hire a budget lawyer?