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: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.)

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.