Slashdot Mirror
After Online Defamation Suit, Dismissal of Malicious Prosecution Claim Upheld
Christoph writes "I'm the Slashdot user who was sued for defamation (and six other claims) by a corporation over negative statements on my website. I prevailed (pro-se) in 2008. The court found the other side forged evidence and lied. In 2009, I sued the other party's lawyers for malicious prosecution/abuse of process (the corporation itself is dissolved/broke). One defendant had stated in writing their client was lying, but the trial court dismissed my claim for lack of evidence. I appealed, and this Tuesday the Minnesota Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, completely ignoring the defendant's written admission (and other evidence). They further found it was not an abuse of process to sue to 'stop the publication of negative information and opinion.'"
That sucks bro. And?
Plain and simple.
We make fun of China and other places, but it seems that our judiciary is now pretty much bought in many places.
Check out this article on how many businesses see corruption as a barrier to entry to markets.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
Smart move to proceed pro se. I just finished a few years in the feds, paid my attorneys middle six figures total, and they did nothing. Only when I started writing my own civil motions on collateral attack (specifically 28 USC 2255 ) did I get any traction at all. If I had to do it all over, I'd proceed pro se.
Little tidbit: you are indeed entitled to counsel if you are arrested, while you are in criminal proceedings. But if you lose an appeal, and have to proceed with collateral attack, that is civil and you are NOT entitled to counsel. Many people sit in prison because they have only civil remedies left.
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
The problem is, you tried to sue a laywer. The funny thing about judges: they used to be lawyers. You remember that old joke claiming that sharks don't eat lawyers out of "professional courtesy"? Same goes for judges. You can sue a doctor, a corporation, or your ex-wife, fine, but if you sue a laywer the entire legal profession closes ranks and roots for the home team.
Judges don't want the loser of every case suing for it.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
That Jefferson was right.
...when hearing appeals in civil cases. They consider only errors of law.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
I'm not entitled to what I want... WAHHHHH
Huh? He got screwed by a criminal corporation and a gang of corrupt attorneys. He's "entitled" to some redress for what they put him through. Do you have a problem with that?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Looks like the OP settled with the non-lawyers early on the MP claims. What result there?
As for the lawyers, the sole piece of evidence the OP seems to have presented that the lawyers knew their clients were lying is a late-October 2007 note. This note was written well after the trial commenced. It doesn't indicate that the lawyers knew or had reason to know from jump-street that the clients were lying. It indicates only (if anything) that perhaps they were not aggressive enough in doing fact investigation or in terminating the litigation already underway.
Am I missing something? If not, the courts' decisions appear to be decent.
He screwed himself by not hiring a lawyer. Defending pro-se is one thing, attempting to prosecute the same way is naive at best and dangerous at worst.
Am I missing something?
Yes. This is Slashdot, and we don't much like judges who reach decisions that our cursory inspection of the article summary find wanting.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Lawyers aren't just allowed to believe their client, they're one or two hairs short of being required to. To be guilty of malicious prosecution, they'd have to have conspired with your particular nemesis to fabricate the case knowing full well there was no case. Except for factual claim #28 against Vladimir Kazaryan, none of your alleged facts, if found to be true, would support a finding of malicious prosecution. And you lose that one because count 5 (aiding and abetting malicious prosecution) only works if you can first prove that there was a malicious prosecution.
I hate to tell you this but the judge got it right: "Appellants complaint did not set forth claims of abuse of process and vicarious liability for which relief could be granted."
You should have tried something like, "[lawyer] could not have reasonably believed in the existence of Zubitskiy after [date] but failed to promptly terminate the case." The lawyer is both entitled and expected to believe his client, at least until the client's claim becomes utterly non-credible.
Sucks to be falsely sued. I know from first-hand experience. But you can't bust the lawyer for doing his job representing the client.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The question is what they knew and when.
Did they knowingly make the false representations to the Court?
It is hard for a malicious prosecution type of action unless you can show when they knew it, when they used to false
information. They can always fall back on, well we believed the lying client.
Fight Spammers!
We need laws against SLAPP(strategic lawsuit against public participation). The courts are not for silencing your critics.
If the lawyers admitted that they knew that their client was lying and continued the case after that point how can you not have a finding that they aided and abetted in the fraud?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
I'm guessing you meant $150 an hour. It's the paralegals that make the fifteen.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
He has to prove that the lawyers had ill intent for him. Defending their client, even while knowing he is lying, isn't against the rules, it just opens them up to the liability. But if they were pushing the issue because it allowed them to hurt the OP, then yeah, the should be held accountable.
It's a gray area. And as such, I would expect most judges (being judicially conservative) would error on the side of the defendant.
That, and by siding with the lower court's dismissal, it saves them the hassle of a trial over the appeal, a retrial of the issue, and a whole lot of paper work. Having been in a similar situation, where the judge told me "I am not familiar with the laws you have cited, so I'm going to side with the State," I have no belief that Judges are different from any other group of employees. There are always some looking to do the least amount of work for their 8 hour shift.
Never underestimate the lazy man's desire to do nothing.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
If it were political speech, various states and provinces set a lower bar, and will dismiss "SLAPP" suits with costs against.
Repeated attempts to use legal processing to threaten, harass or abuse tend to get responded to, and the archaic charge of barratry can be laid.
I don't know what fits in the gap between, where you are. Something with "fraudulent misrepresentation" in it, perhaps? I suspect you need at least a part-time lawyer to do a bit of research on what to claim.
--dave
I'm a philosopher, not a lawyer
davecb@spamcop.net
Who gives a shit. Chris runs a stock photos website. His business model is entirely money for jam and if ya can't get it, sue. Did you read the part of the judgment where it outlines the monetary demands and legal threats Chris made? This is classic stand-over copyright tactics and all these slashtards are applauding it because Chris has presented himself as being the little guy who took on the big corporation and won.
My opinion stands.. you're a copyright troll. If it wasn't for copyright law, no-one would ever give you a dime. That's the definition of non-fair trade to me.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Thank you for summarizing things, but not injecting your opinion or cute sarcastic remarks about the companies involved. Slashdot needs more neutral summaries like this.
What? It just shows what we already knew: any idiot can sue for copyright infringement and win.. the law is totally stacked in favor of the copyright holder.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You were awarded $19,462 Did that cover the costs of this litigation? Yes, I know you were pro se, but I'll also bet you could have been taking a lot of photos during the time you were researching and writing briefs...
Just curious, but did the ruling happen to have any language that would keep you from doing the same sorts of web exposure for this case and all involved as you did to the original corporation? I mean, it pissed them off enough to engage in a stupid lawsuit, maybe it'll annoy the judge and the lawyers too.
Prevailing is not relevant, it happens AFTER the abuse. Asing the law and mobilizing judges, jury, etcetera for any other purpose than obtaining justice means the damage is already done. And What about bankrupting the opponent even before prevailing? And what about real crimes that will go unpunished because judges and corporations are suing 14 years old?
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
he would have likely told you if it was meant to be any of your business. to be blunt, perhaps something serious. not an 8000 issue, in other words. (mea culpa, assumption)
i'd recommend you charge up to someone with a "what criminal charge were you charged with?@!" and see whay that gets ya in Real Life. Results may vary.
what did you get charged with anyway, and when? felonious ass-hattery on both sides of your mothers basement door?
Don't trash the whole profession just because you hired a lousy legal team.
he didn't.
innocent until proven guilty takes on non subtle shades of new meaning when the six figures (yeah, i was there once. no, its not your fucking business why exactly.) pile up in the middle of that statement.
as a courtesy to your need to be authoritative on something, a spelling error has been inserted for you to find and correct, have a nice day son.
heh heh, your mother...
- I'd prefer not to.
First, you misunderstand. The case wasn't dismissed because of evidence, it was dismissed because if all of the factual claims were proven to be 100% true they wouldn't add up to malicious prosecution.
Second, check the timeline. The note was written 10/27/2007 by the head of the law firm, not the particular lawyer. Nearly all the claims had been dismissed months earlier and the rest of the case ended the following week. Even if you were to conclude that the lawyer could not have reasonably believed the client following the note, the case was over! There was no more prosecution!
The OP probably has a decent tort against this Kazaryan fellow, since he was (allegedly) found to have participated in manufacturing the case. Libel or something, I don't know exactly the right tort. But the OP went after the folks with deep pockets instead.
I can't say I blame him for wanting to be paid but you don't get to go after the lawyers for doing their jobs.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I'm an attorney, and I agree. If attorneys could rely on "professional courtesy" they wouldn't each pay thousands of dollars per year in malpractice premiums. There's no lack of legal malpractice suits, but I would say that attorney discipline, including disbarment, doesn't happen often enough. Just look at how long it took Jack Thompson to get disbarred.
Yup. The problem is that the legal system has gotten way out of hand.
In theory the way it is supposed to work is that two parties with a disagreement go to court, and the court decides who is in the wrong. Maybe the person in the wrong gets punished by the court via damages of some kind depending on the nature of the dispute.
The problem is that today simply going to court is effectively punishment, and the actual damages are just outrageous quite often. Courts do not value the time of participants, and a trial takes many hours of preparation and motion practice let alone showing up in court. The result is that simply being named in a suit is finacially ruinous. Even going pro se doesn't help a great deal, as it takes countless hours that you aren't paid for to go to trial. It might also cost you your job. If you go pro se you could end up messing up and paying sanctions for the other side's legal expenses. Oh, but if the other side messes up they won't pay for your legal bills since you don't have any, and your time is considered worthless since you aren't an attorney. When it comes to scheduling the opposing counsel can point out to the court various conflicts with other litigation that they need to pursue and the court will respect this, but the court will care little for a pro se defendant's other commitments, since they aren't court-related.
They really need to switch to a system where legal costs are balanced. Courts should stipulate a budget for each side, and the court pays the expenses of all counsel. It will be illegal to pay a lawyer, and lawyers cannot parter with other services/etc as a way to get money in the back door. Lawyers will work for the court, and not for parties themselves, essentially. Then, after the trial the entire cost of the trial becomes one of the matters at issue and the loser generally pays. Oh, wealthy plaintiffs will have to put up security in advance.
With such a system neither side can out-lawyer the other as the legal budgets of both sides are fixed and equal. Poor defendants are not subject to death-by-process either.
Actually thinking about it there might be a way to fix this broken system. simply have BOTH SIDES forced to use public defender style lawyers, and if the corp wants better then they have to pay into a fund that half the money goes to opposing council thus insuring that neither side can just use "hired thugs" to overpower the other. After all the courts have ruled money is speech, so it should be only fair that in a court of law BOTH sides get free speech, yes? Because as it is now the law is a bad joke. The rich can do anything to anyone and short of taking the law into their own hands the poor have NO redress, simply because the rich can afford to drag a case on for decades.
I have seen this in action when a local ISP was screwed out of their backbone access by a big corp who basically said "Don't like it? Just try to sue us" and they were told by their lawyer "Oh no doubt you'll win, but it'll take a decade and cost a million and a half just in lawyers fees". Needless to say they just gave up their ISP and walked away. And THAT is the power the law has given the multicorps with this broken system today. You don't like competition? Well then just bury any startups in so much legal bullshit they can't even breath and will be forced to spend all their money on the courts.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
My kingdom for a mod point... but alas I have none... Oh, no kingdom either...
Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up there.
You are being kind saying that trying to sue someone sans lawyer is at best naive.
Judges used to be... (drum roll)... LAWYERS!!!
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
Perhaps those malicious pests at Allen and Overy will stop hassling me about my article, Long live the Streisand effect.
My web domain.
Why -1? This is right on.
But chalking decisions like this up to "professional courtesy" or a broken legal system is overhasty.
That might be the case but it is hard to have confidence in a system where the lawyers police themselves. Would you be happy going to a doctor if you knew that, no matter how badly he might mess up a treatment, you would only be successful in suing him if a panel of other doctors agreed he had mistreated you? If it is fine for lawyers to police themselves then how about all the other professions as well?
"In the end, lawyers are held responsible for their--and even their clients'--actions all the time. We get fined, suspended, disbarred, held liable, and otherwise disciplined on a regular basis. Does it happen often enough? Sometimes I doubt that."
For criminal prosecutors, as I understand it, not remotely often enough. Need some more of that:
"Significantly, of the 4,741 public disciplinary actions reported in the California State Bar Journal from January 1997 to September 2009, only ten involved prosecutors, and only six of these were for conduct in the handling of a criminal case. That means that the State Bar publicly disciplined only one percent of the prosecutors in the 600 cases in which the courts found prosecutorial misconduct and NCIP researchers identified the prosecutor."
http://thecrimereport.org/2010/10/04/justice-on-trial/
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
But chalking decisions like this up to "professional courtesy" or a broken legal system is overhasty.
Don't fool yourself, the system is broken. It's broken bad.
Patents, Blagojevich, DUIs, family law, OJ, cops, big-pharma, it just goes on and on. Taking things to court means little chance of justice. Our courts have become just another tool of the rich and powerful.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
On the other hand, I'm reminded of this story (there are many variations):
There was an engineer who had an exceptional gift for fixing all things mechanical. After serving his company loyally for over 30 years, he happily retired.
Several years later the company contacted him regarding a seemingly impossible problem they were having with one of their multimillion dollar machines.
They had tried everything and everyone else to get the machine to work but to no avail. In desperation, they called on the retired engineer who had solved so many of their problems in the past.
The engineer reluctantly took the challenge. He spent a day studying the huge machine. At the end of the day, he marked a small "x" in chalk on a particular component of the machine and stated, "This is where your problem is." The part was replaced and the machine worked perfectly again.
The company received a bill for $50,000 from the engineer for his service.
They demanded an itemized accounting of his charges. The engineer responded briefly:
"One chalk mark $1. Knowing where to put it $49,999"
Granted, most attorneys do make heavy use of boilerplate, but then again, most legal tasks are entirely routine. In any event, you're paying a professional for both his knowledge of the law, and knowing how to apply it to your situation. I know what you're saying and it's often true: many attorneys do milk the system. But I have lawyers in my family, and number them among my friends. Not all lawyers are crooks, most are honest and earn their keep.
I would say a more correct complaint would be towards a legal system that requires attorneys to be such an integral part of our lives. That wasn't always the case, but as the law has increased in complexity and overall retardedness, the need for a competent lawyer to navigate it's intricacies is frequently a necessity.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
to navigate it's intricacies
Dammit, I hate it when I do that.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
My kingdom for a mod point... but alas I have none... Oh, no kingdom either... Sorry if I got anyone's hopes up there. You are being kind saying that trying to sue someone sans lawyer is at best naive. Judges used to be... (drum roll)... LAWYERS!!!
Yes, well, when they put on those robes and pick up that gavel, they're supposed to magically become utterly impartial and incorruptible paragons of logic, reason, and compassion.
Yeah, or something like that.
Naive for expecting the legal system to actually be concerned about the law and dangerous to lawyers that are mostly nothing more than copy/paste artists that think they deserve to get paid $15 an hour to tell the paralegals what to do.
As an aside, I've generally had a harder time trying to find a car mechanic who is both honest and competent, than I have had in finding a decent attorney.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
If you don't go to other men's funerals they won't go to yours. -- Clarence Day
In adding a sig, for no other reason, than for aesthetics.
Self deprecation is apparently no longer funny. That is telling of this site...
I'd happily pay you Tuesday for a biopsy today!
The other party claimed I did not create the photo I had a copyright registration for, and his attorneys claimed the real owner was a man the client met in a sauna and paid $850 in cash. This mystery seller had no address, no phone number, and was completely untraceable. When I subpoenaed the phone company for any unlisted phone number for this man, "Micheal Zubitskiy", the other side's lawyers tried to quash the subpoena. This is called "willful ignorance" under the law. The federal judge in the case ruled there was "no credible evidence to support the belief that Zubitskiy existed".
If you bring a suit with no evidence, no personal knowledge of who created the photo, no basis to deny the other party's legal title of ownership, you lack "probable cause". If you didn't know if at first, they had 2.5 years to figure it out. Even after the notary lost his commission for notarizing the fraudulent sales agreement with Zubitskiy, they did not drop their claim he was a real person.
www.cgstock.com
why -!? simple...
slashdot = stagnated
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
We can say that, and indeed had he done so he probably would have prevailed at trial. The problem is that the people he should have sued--the corporation, ie, the people who actually lied--were bankrupt and he didn't feel it worth the time to sue them. He's probably right. But rather than go "this sucks but there's nothing I can do," he instead decided to look around for somebody who did have some money he could sue for and he went after their lawyers.
Now you have an entirely different ballgame. Not because of some "judges protect lawyers" conspiracy, but because you're now suing a tangential party. Lawyers are their clients' advocates and they operate on an assumption of good faith. Proving the client lied is not enough; now he has to prove the lawyers knew, when they knew, and that they then acted in bad faith to the courts by continuing the case either without informing the respondent or by continuing a case that no longer had merit with the lies exposed -- all of which are tricky.
He knows he sued the wrong people, he says as much in the summary when he mentions the corporation went bankrupt. He just seems to believe that their wrongdoing was also their lawyers' and is acting like a petulant child when two separate courts disagreed with him. What happened to him sucks. The fact that somebody can get away with it because he did it from behind the veil of a corporation sucks, and is, in my mind, the real issue to be gleaned from this situation and addressed. The ruling I'm fine with.
Christoph, well done overall and I'm certainly on your side with respect to the copyright issue, but your position on the lawyers doesn't hold up as well.
Attempting to quash a subpoena is almost standard procedure. Under precisely what law is that "willful ignorance"?
Your response mixes together what the other party knew and did and what his lawyers knew and did. It also mixes together the court's findings-of-fact with what the lawyers knew, should have known, were told, and were required to do. Moreover, you are simply wrong about what the lawyers' responsibility was. Lawyers need not have "personal knowledge" of the facts claimed to be true. They need only believe the facts claimed to be true based on information from the client. We could certainly argue about whether that's good public policy, but that's the way it is. And finding out midway that the client's story may be false does not necessarily equate to malicious prosecution or abuse of process.
The problem with comparing engineers to attorneys is you can hire an attorney to put that chalk mark anywhere you want it. (or an economist)
t
The problem with comparing engineers to attorneys is you can hire an attorney to put that chalk mark anywhere you want it. (or an economist)
Well, maybe if lawyers spent more time chalking up economists we'd all be better off.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The other party tried to quash a subpoena to the phone company. The judge asked at the hearing, "What is your standing? You don't represent the phone company." Their answer: "Well, we have no standing."
The phone company did not object to the subpoena, so they tried to interpose an objection on behalf of the phone company. That is not standard at all, and they lost.
It's willful ignorance because I showed early on that "Michael Zubitskiy" did not exist, and they never so much as opened the phone book to see if he was real.
www.cgstock.com
I'd just like to emphasise that boilerplate is used because it is language that has stood the test of the courts for explicitly defining the intent that is being expressed. Writing the same passage from scratch each time would be wasteful and legally dangerous.
The client testified years earlier at deposition he had no evidence to back up his story. That is something his lawyers should have believed. The client also said he was not challenging my copyright. The lawyers decided to challenge my copyright on his behalf despite his truthful statements he had absolutely no evidence to do so.
I personally "believe" everyone in the world stole my car last night. A lawyer cannot take that case based on "believing me". There must be probable cause -- evidence. There was never the slightest hope the claims against me could prevail, which is why one was dismissed as pure speculation.
www.cgstock.com
Unless you're lucky and happen to live in a jurisdiction like Quebec, which has anti-SLAP ("baillon", or "Strategic Lawsuit Against Participation") legislation in place, you have no little or no recourse. In Quebec you could ask for 10 grand of lawyers fees up front from the corporation and you could ask to have to court throw out the defamation lawsuit prior to it going to court.
That's a valid point. There are a few, rare exceptions. I prevailed in prosecuting a claim for statutory damages for copyright infringement, and removal of copyright management information, against the other party. I was able to use the courts to actually collect the judgment, too. And I did this pro-se, or I would have paid around 40k-60k.
www.cgstock.com
It needs to be transformed from a system that is based on control, ownership and seniority, to one based on merit, accountability, and transparency. I have said it time and tie again - with our economy wrapped up in capitalistic fervor, we simply can not allow its influence in our governance - its the ultimate checks and balances in our founding documents, yet complete ignored....
....).
What pundits, muckrakers, naysayers, and evangelists fail to recognize and purposefully glance over is the fact that Democracy gives birth to Economy, not the other way around - and it is in fact our governments DUTY to reign in on action limiting the prosperity of its PEOPLE, domestic or otherwise!.
I tend to think its intentional - the confusion and diversion to an argument that they themselves present to us. Article one, section eight of our Constitution has been shredded - its now owned and distorted as much as your brain watching Steven Jobs sell you a music player you don't want made in a country you never heard of (disclaimer I have two, and iphone, and
And it has to do with the systemic infiltration of practices that could downright be viewed as a form of slavery in some cases.
It just seems to me a bit more prudent to not have the FOX guard the hen house if we claim to be a consumer driven free market economy. Sounds to me like double speak the more I think about it - and with Face Crime becoming a reality, we have no reason to think other wise.
They - the really bright fuckers that set this thing up - did, however, give us the power to vote, but we are to glazed by donuts, whiskey, kindbuds and the simpsons to even care about that, or at least put these idiots in office all.
IT IS in fact a Socialist concept to reign in on the economy where necessary but we are far from socialism.... I stil cant get oive what people miss about making sure some basic essentials are provided like power, water, education and healtcare - until you relize who keeps you from really getting those things - invariable and asshole like this judge lets the cat out of the bag.
- and simply put, our lawmakers and leader have been bought out / or sold out, a LONG, LONG, LONG time ago.
If we are serious about changing this thing we call government and economy we need roll back 1973 laws about corporation's rights, and ANY subsequent expansion of these ideal up to and including the recent Supreme Court decision allowing unlimited campaign contributions - when in reality there should ONLY be contributions from CITIZENS.
Especially when that article summary is written by someone with a vested interest in the case, coloring their whole account of events.
and now you come to /. and whine because?
No, seriously, I looked for the point, purpose, goal, meaning, whatever-you-want-to-call-it of this article, and I can't find one. You intend to do what by posting this? Wouldn't this blurb be much better as a Facebook wall posting?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Sounds like a fair idea to me... Same principle might radically alter criminal cases too, since as it is now, the gov't (prosecution) has effectively unlimited funds, while the defendent doesn't (and is unlikely to get equal value from a public defender, either). Would likely put an end to the trick of using the plea-bargain system to get a conviction against shaky evidence.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Sounds like a classic SLAPP suit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_public_participation
And then you figure out where your money is coming from, and for 99.9% of lawyers, which duty to fulfill becomes obvious.
to navigate it's intricacies
Dammit, I hate it when I do that.
So you're a generalist, then? =p
Your brain is not a computer.
Good beer or Oettinger where you pay more for the glass bottle than the beer in it?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I just have to download this 900 gig Geocities torrent so I can properly RTFA.
We wouldn't need lawyers to interpret the law if we didn't elect lawyers to write them.
Well of course. Nobody looks for honesty in an attorney.
Violence is like duct tape. If it doesn't solve the problem, you didn't use enough.
The client -- the corporation's owner -- testified under oath he had no evidence to support his version of events, and no personal knowledge of who really took the photo. His lawyers were the architects of the litigation knowing their client admitted having no evidence.
A law firm in Minnesota was sanctioned $20k for continuing to defend a claim after their client admitted at deposition they were essentially liable for the suit against them. Under the rules of civil procedure, all claims are supposed to be supported by evidence, or you may face sanctions (having to pay the other party's costs).
www.cgstock.com
I know what you're saying and it's often true: many attorneys do milk the system. But I have lawyers in my family, and number them among my friends. ...
weird, I consider family, well, family. no one in my family is my friend, because they are, well, my family.
Some I like, some I can't stand, but they are family, that's it.
Be seeing you...
"I showed early on that "Michael Zubitskiy" did not exist"
How?
mod parent up, up, up
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
What a depressing indictment of our system that the thought of an intelligent, dedicated layman attempting to navigate the courts without expensive guidance is considered "naive at best and dangerous and worst".
You're right of course. But isn't that a horrible place for us to be in?
Oettinger - the beer who's name shall not be uttered. I recently observed a feeding frenzy at the local supermarket. Oettinger past its expiration was sold for half price... Not a pretty sight.
Ah well - *raises a glass of Augustiner*
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
But to avoid copyright or patent issues you better make sure it was written in a clean room.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
You know what - I would because it would cut down on the crazy medical malpractices awards and maybe, just maybe, make healthcare affordable.
Wait, that stuff has an expiration date?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Apparently. I try not to get too deep into areas of forbidden knowledge like this. The dark arts have this tendency to bite you in the arse. Ia! Ia! Oettinger Ftaghn!
Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant.
Huh? He got screwed by a criminal corporation and a gang of corrupt attorneys. He's "entitled" to some redress for what they put him through. Do you have a problem with that?
He didn't get screwed - the summary is (unsurprisingly, given that it was written by one of the parties) biased.
There were three actions. The first was for copyright infringement, which he won and received $19,462 in damages, being $4,462 of actual damages and $15,000 of statutory damages. In response to this the other party countersued over comments made on his website and lost.
This story relates to an attempted claim for malicious prosecution and abuse of process against the other party's attorneys. The judge effectively found that an attorney is entitled to rely on the sworn testimony of his client even if the other party says that testimony is untrue - and how could it possibly be otherwise without rendering litigation impossible? The poster has on his website a document he alleges to show that the attorneys knew their client was lying, but as far as I can tell it is not referenced in any of the cases - I don't know whether it was actually admitted as evidence. The appeal judge refers to the claim as being essentially that because in the end the claims were found not to be credible the prosecution must have been malicious - this is clearly something of a leap. Finally, the poster claims unfairness because he was denied his day in court by this summary judgement. But given that the judgement was given based on there being no chance of success it is difficult to see what the day in court could achieve other than inconveniencing his opponent - and allowing a claim for abuse of process in order only to harass the other party would be a ridiculous irony.
If the claim of malicious prosecution was ambitious the appeal seems to have been consigned to failure from the beginning. The appeal judge notes that the appeal contained no disputes of law or of fact, so it is hard to see how he expected the decision to be reversed.
Would you be happy going to a doctor if you knew that, no matter how badly he might mess up a treatment, you would only be successful in suing him if a panel of other doctors agreed he had mistreated you?
Yeah, the only folks who should pass judgement on medical treatment are plumbers. And the guy down at the 7-11, you know the one, he clearly knows a lot about prescription medication!
Well, maybe for surgical cases, we should allow master carpenters onto the board.
</sarcasm>
and his attorneys claimed the real owner was a man the client met in a sauna and paid $850 in cash.
Did they wipe off the sauna bench, and throw the condom into the trash at least?
This mystery seller had no address, no phone number, and was completely untraceable.
The mystery seller probably just preferred to stay in the closet...
When I subpoenaed the phone company for any unlisted phone number for this man, "Micheal Zubitskiy", the other side's lawyers tried to quash the subpoena.
... and rightfully so. How would you feel if the opposing party tried to nose around about what you do in bed? My God, Slashdot where have you left the respect for "thy neighbour's privacy"?
Why you prevailed when being sued:
"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids all men to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread -- the rich as well as the poor."
- Anatole France, Crainquebille, 1902
Why you lost your suit:
The purpose of government is to defend the rich from the poor (Adam Smith's "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations")
Not really, most of the times I've seen it's been pretty lacking. Meaning that they're using evidence which is easily forged, allowing for time travel conspiracy theories and generally abusing the process.
The described series of events so far do appear to be negligent to me, at best.
While it might be difficult to prove their actions WILLFUL, this situation stinks of "willing to take money to fuck someone over when the whole situation sounds like a crapfest."
Paid for it in a sauna. LOL. Don't expect me to believe they believed that.
C//
He knows he sued the wrong people, he says as much in the summary when he mentions the corporation went bankrupt.
I'm a little confused, though. Why sue the corporation? Sue the bad actors, whoever it was who lied and made shit up. Did THEY declare bankruptcy? Just because they were working for a corporation does not protect them from civil prosecution.
C//
We wouldn't need lawyers to interpret the law if we didn't elect lawyers to write them.
Yeah, or if we didn't have an entire class of individuals formally known as "lawmakers." I mean, we've hired them for that purpose for a couple of hundred years, and we're surprised at the result?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The attorney's client stated, under oath, he had no evidence to back up his version of events, and no personal knowledge (as to who created the photo). See Appellant's brief, p. 9. They ignored his admission to having no evidence and proceeded with the case. This is not because they "believed him", but if anything they didn't believe him.
Before trial, they even admitted they were not challenging the truthfulness of anything on my website, but still proceeded to trial (and were allowed to do so). Same brief, p. 15.
One of the claims against me was ruled to be "purely speculative" and was dismissed (Id. p. 13). Yet I can't go to trial because there is no hope of showing a "purely speculative" claim lacked probable cause. That's not most people's definition of probable cause.
www.cgstock.com
to navigate it's intricacies
Dammit, I hate it when I do that.
So you're a generalist, then? =p
Yes, indeed I am.
M. Twain
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
How are you drying your lawyers? Because without drying I find them quite soggy to begin with, and even with my current drying technique, I find they absorb liquids (like milk or gravy) all too readily.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
Most to nearly all lawyers will take bad cases, and so ensure the continuation of said horrible legal system.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
How did I show "Michael Zubitskiy" didn't exist?
They explained he simply lives underground and is impossible to find (yet is a working digital photographer who was able to produce ID to have his signature notarized).
At trial, only a fraction of this evidence was admitted before the judge put a stop to it, calling it "cumulative". In other words, it's beyond any doubt.
www.cgstock.com
I'd just like to emphasise that boilerplate is used because it is language that has stood the test of the courts for explicitly defining the intent that is being expressed. Writing the same passage from scratch each time would be wasteful and legally dangerous.
True. And for what lawyers typically charge, the "wasteful" part isn't anywhere near as important as the "legally dangerous" part.
And you know what? Us programmers use boilerplate all the time. We call them "macros",or "scripts", or "libraries", pieces of code that we re-use because they do the job and have stood the test of time. Always writing code from scratch can be dangerous, especially when you have some good boilerplate libraries handy to do the work.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
The other party allegedly gave "Zubitskiy" his phone number when they met in a sauna. I asked at trial to explain how he did so, since people don't usually bring either a cell phone or pen and paper into a sauna. "My phone number is easy to memorize". The phone number had no pattern to it, and the judge ruled this story to be a lie.
www.cgstock.com
I would say a more correct complaint would be towards a legal system that requires attorneys to be such an integral part of our lives. That wasn't always the case, but as the law has increased in complexity and overall retardedness, the need for a competent lawyer to navigate it's intricacies is frequently a necessity.
Given that the large majority of lawmakers and judges are lawyers themselves, complaining about "the system" and complaining about "lawyers" is pretty much the same thing.
Wins again. Not right, but not surprising.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I don't have time at the moment to go into any great detail - I'll try to check back later if I can - but just a couple of points:
- You're confusing a lack of evidence with knowledge of untruth. To succeed you had to prove that the attorney knew that their client was not telling the truth and you could not do this.
- The point isn't whether or not a "purely speculative" claim lacked probable cause, it's that even showing that it lacked probable cause would not have been enough. That's what the case law cited in the District Court judgement was demonstrating.
- You weren't denied your day in court - you had it. This was effectively a striking-out hearing; the point is that the elements that you failed to prove in this hearing are required if you are to prove your claim. Since you couldn't prove them you could not possibly succeed in your claim. There would be no advantage to proceeding to trial other than to harass your opponents, which would, as I stated, be rather ironic.
As always I should point out that I don't study US law and shouldn't ever be relied on.
Not all lawyers are crooks, most are honest and earn their keep.
This is where your argument falls apart.
My guess is that nobody wants to be on the bad side of any prosecuting attorney's office, which is what would happen in all but the most egregious cases.
At one extreme end, you could really be dealing with an office capable and willing to abuse their authority, which could mean jail time or at least thousands spent defending yourself against prosecutorial attacks. Even at the mild end, everybody wants leverage at the prosecutor's office. Being a whistleblower doesn't get you that leverage.
The first element of malicious prosecution is legally defined in Minnesota as follows:
(1) an action is brought without probable cause or reasonable belief that the plaintiff will ultimately prevail on the merits
See Stead-Bowers v. Langley, 636 N.W.2d 334, 338 (Minn. App. 2001).
Showing the lawyer knew the client was lying is one, but not the only way, of showing lack of probable cause for the underlying action. And there really shouldn't be cases brought that lack probable cause under any standard, without having to pay the other parties costs.
www.cgstock.com
Intelligent, dedicated laymen attempting to navigate the courts (and doing anything else that isn't philanthropic) generally have their own interests at heart, not those of the broader society. It is those latter, broader interests that laws are supposed to serve, not the interests of any one individual. The concept is called "rule of law", to be contrasted with "rule of man". Personally, I think where we are is a fine place for us to be.
In response to the obvious questions "wasn't he taken advantage of? doesn't he deserve compensation for his pain?", I ask the logical follow-up question: "how would you design a system of laws that uniformly makes punishment fit the crime, without favoring one person over another?" The answer we've come up with is insanely complex, because life is insanely complex. You are welcome to suggest alternatives, but I think it's a good thing having a guide who has been specially trained on public policy, politics, and the history of thinking on how societies should progress (not to mention the mundane details, like the actual laws in your jurisdiction). Of course, I am a lawyer, so feel free to accuse me of bias.
Most people are selfish, and don't think about the broader interests of society before they act. We've even come to expect selfishness and short-term greed in our citizens, rather than community-minded thinking and long-term planning. That's the real shame.
This post expresses my opinion, not that of my employer. And yes, IAAL.
Sue this person personally. His corporation being bankrupt has little to do with it, as a corporation does not provide a liability shield in cases of personal misconduct of its employees or executives.
Do a title search on him. You want to find if he has a home. Equity and the homeowner's liability umbrella are what you need to target.
If he doesn't have a home now, bide your time. Most states give you about 7 years leeway.
C//
I would be happy to do that too - but only so long as the panel of doctors was answerable to some higher, non-medical authority. Policing your own profession works fine up to a point but professions have their own view of the world and need to at least be reminded to keep in touch with the rest of society from time-to-time. Making them answerable to nobody but themselves is a recipe for disaster in the long term...at least if the legal profession is any sort of example.
Yeah, the only folks who should pass judgement on medical treatment are plumbers. And the guy down at the 7-11, you know the one, he clearly knows a lot about prescription medication!
You misread my post - I did not say that doctors should not police themselves but that they should not be solely responsible for policing themselves without any oversight (as is currently the case for lawyers). Having no self-policing is just as bad as having only self-policing: as is the case with most things you need a balance.
To a rightist, any time there is a conflict between our corporate overlords and a mere peasant, the peasant is always wrong. Peasants who don't know their place need to be smacked down a little harder lest the other peasants get ideas.
I'm sure that your citation of Minnesota law, and your interpretation of the words "probable cause" would, in certain contexts, be accurate. However statute law is only one part of the process of construction, another is case law. The District Judge explained to you the reason, in law, that you cannot succeed simply by showing that the client had no proof: the liability for an attorney under the tort of malicious prosecution is more carefully circumscribed than the statute would suggest. In his judgement he referred you to Hoppe v Klapperich, in which it was held that an attorney is liable for malicious prosecution only if he "knowingly" became an "instrumentality for the perpetration of fraud"*. This is clearly a much more restrictive test, requiring a much higher degree of intention than simply lack of probable cause and will, I imagine, have been a policy decision to protect plaintiffs' access to attorneys. With this in mind you can, I'm sure, see that the evidence you adduced at trial could not possibly satisfy the standard required to succeed; other than showing that the attorney knew his client to be lying I cannot readily see any way you could have made out your claim.
* [these quotes are taken from the headnote - I don't have access to the full case file without getting a physical copy of the case from the library. They should still be accurate.]
I appreciate your point of view and maybe I won't change your mind, but will provide more about Hoppe v Klapperich:
“If the attorney proceeds upon facts stated to him by his client, believing those facts to be true, and if those facts, if true, would constitute probable cause for instituting such a prosecution, then the attorney is exonerated.”
Hoppe v. Klapperich, 224 Minn. 224, 242, 28 N.W.2d 780, 792 (1947).
If the client's claim was true, he paid a stranger in a sauna $850 in cash for a photo to use in advertising. He admits having no personal knowledge if the stranger actually owned the rights to the photo. I said was my photo, and was used without permission. They initially agreed with me...until I posted a web page. Then they reversed positions, said the stranger was the true photographer, and sued for defamation.
I had a certifcate of copyright registration, proof of prior publication, out-takes, the high-resolution file. I offered this evidence, they said they didn't want it.
Not wanting to pay the rightful owner when you are using stolen property is not probable cause to sue the rightful owner for defamation. That means the attorney is liable (under Hoppe) because the litigation lacked probable cause.
It might be akin to suing someone for defamation because they claim to own the house you are squatting in. They have title to the house, all the neighbors agree they have lived there for years, but you claim "I paid a stranger in a sauna $850 to live in this house". Probable cause does not allow for the absurd, and I believe such a claim is absurd.
www.cgstock.com
"It is those latter, broader interests that laws are supposed to serve, not the interests of any one individual. The concept is called "rule of law", to be contrasted with "rule of man". Personally, I think where we are is a fine place for us to be."
Really? If your view is common then we are truly screwed.
Because that's how we got decisions like Dred Scott and court support for discrimination in all aspects of our life. The rule of law is supposed to treat everyone equally not priviledge some at the expense of others. I think you have it exactly backwards.
Society favors the status quo. And the status quo is generally not favorable to large groups of individuals.
"You are welcome to suggest alternatives, but I think it's a good thing having a guide who has been specially trained on public policy, politics, and the history of thinking on how societies should progress (not to mention the mundane details, like the actual laws in your jurisdiction). Of course, I am a lawyer, so feel free to accuse me of bias."
You are biased. Never forget that. But everyone is. The concept you espouse is incredibly elitist, in the most negative sense of the word. It priviledges a few at the expense of the many. Lawyers should not be the gatekeepers of progress. No one group should be. Diversity of thought and experience is a good thing.
People are not interested in laws. They want justice. The problem is that lawyers deal with laws. Our system is not actually designed for a justice outcome as the primary event.
I would say a more correct complaint would be towards a legal system that requires attorneys to be such an integral part of our lives. That wasn't always the case, but as the law has increased in complexity and overall retardedness, the need for a competent lawyer to navigate it's intricacies is frequently a necessity.
Given that the large majority of lawmakers and judges are lawyers themselves, complaining about "the system" and complaining about "lawyers" is pretty much the same thing.
Not really. Your average working lawyer doesn't have any input into the way the system works, the way laws are written: he just understands them and uses them to his client's benefit. That's not in and of itself evil, it's just a job that's required by the system we live under.
... ", "All lawyers are ...", "All engineers are ...", "All {blank} are ...". No matter how you slice it, it's not right to judge everyone by the actions of some of their peers.
I agree, that system has flaws and that many of those were created by ex-lawyers. But tarring all of them with the same brush is unfair. As a rule, I don't like it when people make generalized comments that "all people" in a given class suck, no matter what the reason, because given a large enough class, that's statistically improbable.
Pick a category: "All Americans are
I'm not defending bad attorneys, because they're out there and I've met some over the years. I'm not defending any dishonest, sleazy individual who puts who rates his or her own self-interest so highly that other people get hurt by it. But I won't do a disservice to all those who are honest, who do earn their pay.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Not all lawyers are crooks, most are honest and earn their keep.
This is where your argument falls apart.
Lawyers are like doctors or car mechanics, or any other professional that you don't use very often, but when you need one, you need one. It's easy to sit back and criticize an entire profession, to claim that everyone in that class is dishonest, criminal or incompetent, but the reality is very different. Yes, you have to be careful when selecting a professional to work for you (caveat emptor) but that's true no matter what that profession is.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Well of course. Nobody looks for honesty in an attorney.
Sure they do. Everyone seems to think that the only thing attorneys do is fight court cases. And that's completely ridiculous. The vast majority of work that is done by attorneys is far more mundane, and actually serves to prevent lawsuits and other courtroom activity, because they foster and document agreements between multiple parties. And that's a case where you do want an honest, competent attorney. Well, you do if you are honest and aren't trying to cheat anyone yourself.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
You can't practice law without buying into a corrupt system, which doesn't necessarily make you a bad person. We all have to make a living some how.
But I think people have a right to be critical of the profession as a whole. Lawyers are a weight upon society without being very productive themselves, at least in terms of necessities of life.
In an ideal society we would not have lawyers.
Hi MR AC! You get the idea! As it is now a rich person can hire endless experts, endless paralegals to research every nook and cranny for loopholes, and the poor man has no redress because they simply can't afford to put their argument upon equal footing. By forcing each side to pay half their costs into a fund for the other then BOTH sides can afford experts, BOTH sides can afford paralegals, and in the end it will come down to the quality of your case and not the amount of money in your pocket. I didn't think about criminal but I don't see why this couldn't work here as well, as it would keep the state from railroading a poor defendant and forcing plea bargains on shitty cases.
In the end it is about bring the judicial system back to what the founding fathers originally intended: For each side to make their best case before a judge or jury and allow each to be decided by the merits of their arguments and NOT by who can hire the most legal thugs, which is what we have now. Now legal cases are simply wars of attrition, which always favor he who has the most gold.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
It's certainly true that they're necessary on occasion, if only because their kind have made it that way. I'm not sure this speaks to the quality of their character though.
I do see why lawyers exist. Any time you have people governed with rules, there will be people who muddle interpretations of those rules for their own advantage or find a way to skirt them entirely. Naturally the result is an increasing volume and detail of rules. Eventually you need people with the inclination and ability to navigate and manipulate the otherwise incomprehensible mess. I guess that makes lawyers the end result of human greed and indecency... but still necessary.
Doctors and mechanics, on the other hand, strive to provide corrective services. Bodies and cars break, they try to fix them... make things better in exchange for payment. There's nobility in those job descriptions that few lawyers will ever know. Of course, there are some exceptions in the world, and I'd offer my apologies to them for societies generalizations.
Our system is not actually designed for a justice outcome as the primary event.
Deterrence seems to be one of those primary goals nowadays, that of frightening the mass man into toeing the line. Of course, if your case happens to be one of those where a judge decides to make an example as a warning to others, odds are you won't get anything resembling justice.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
And you'll do better on the procedure. You gotta make a prima facie case; didn't do it here.
Should have been happy with your pro se win in the first trial.
It's great to hear all sides of this. Someone posted that malicious prosecution is legally defined in Minnesota law as: (1) an action is brought without (a) probable cause or (b) reasonable belief that the plaintiff will ultimately prevail on the merits
if (b) was true we would have record of a plaintif's lawyer memo stating: Myclient has no chance in hell of winning due to x,y, z, but I'm taking the losing case to soak my plaintif client for $300 per hour.
if (a) was true we would have record of a plaintif's lawyer who knew his client was lying ( aka no probable cause)
It sounds like (a) is true here. People on slashdot have advised you to seek a re-hearing or appeal to the MN Supreme Court.
Christoph, thanks for the China factory photos. You sound like a great citizen. I'm glad you celebrated your pro-se win and took this one step further. You will face judges who don't want to see you sue lawyers and win. These plaintif lawyers accepted a lying client because they are bullies, they knew you were an easy victim (some dude with a website) . If you had a legal team they never would have taken the case. Keep us updated. We need you to win and make this a precedent case. But stay human, don't let it consume you.
to the individual responsible: present yourself to me; admit what you've done and i will bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
Doctors and mechanics, on the other hand, strive to provide corrective services. Bodies and cars break, they try to fix them... make things better in exchange for payment.
Well, let me give you an example of an attorney that made things better. He wasn't even my attorney.
About twenty five years ago, I was working for a video game company. I worked there for a couple of years before I left. A few months later they contracted me to do a conversion of a game written for the IBM PC to the Apple ][/IIe. It was all in 8086 assembler, and needed to be ported to 6502 for the Apple. I should have known better (I had quit for a reason) but in the interim the old software manager had left, and the new guy seemed reasonable (and actually, he was, but I had forgotten what dicks upper management could be.)
The company promised to make some resources available to us for development: they did not, and I had to pay for them myself. We had a number of milestones in the contract: we met them, but they refused to pay. After a month or so, I told them flatly, "bring your accounts current or the project will be terminated" and gave them a copy of the work in progress up 'til that point, in case they wanted to hire someone else to complete it, or finish it themselves.
So, naturally, the company attorney gives me a ring. He wanted to know why were refusing to complete the contract, considering that we'd been delivering everything up until then (I think he expected that I was holding out for more money, or something like that.) Now, as I've pointed out elsewhere, I have attorneys in my family so I don't immediately get heart palpitations and faint when one of them calls me. So I explained what was going on, that we had continued to work for a month without pay, had met all our milestones, and that without the equipment and software they had agreed to provide. Needless to say, I was very irritated at the entire situation, but he was very pleasant, and seemed honestly surprised (what I was telling him was not, apparently, what he had been told. The man listened very patiently and said, "well, I understand your situation, but I still sense some enthusiasm for the project. Tell you what, give me 'til tomorrow before you do anything and I'll get back to you."
Much to my surprise, I received a check for the full amount due by Fed-Ex the next morning. We finished the job, and I actually did another one for them a little later. Never had a problem getting paid after that: I got the distinct impression he'd not appreciated being lied to by his employers.
Not all lawyers want to turn everything into a fight. This guy did what he was paid to do, and avoided a major headache for both sides (they had shipping dates and other commitments to make, so if I'd dropped the project it would have been a big deal.) They had tried to use (mis-use, really) their own attorney to get thousands of dollars of software development for free. That wasn't a huge surprise to me: some months before I left there had been a huge layoff, so I knew there were financial problems going on.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
i create new accounts because i CAN create new accounts.
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
Go away, you arrogant fucktard.
Seriously, just push off.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
..manipulate the karma system of this site to attempt to silence me.
Silence you? That would be a minor miracle.
I'm not holding my breath.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
When you look to the Rules of Professional Conduct of your state, and research cases of your state's supreme court disbarring or sanctioning lawyers, you will notice just how egregious conduct must be in order for attorneys to be personally liable for wrongdoing.
Proving that they knew before they filed is quite difficult; the standard should be outlined in the commentary for your state's RPCs....
did she name you sardaukar86? or is that just your favorite character from one of your fantasy graphic novels, and you like to pretend that it's you and call yourself that?
you're completely pathetic.
why would i listen to you?
you are NOTHING
what is your point today? that you can not instill your will upon me? that is absolutely correct. perhaps you SHOULD hold your breath... this world has nothing for you.
you're completely pathetic.
well,
it looks like its on to the stat supreme court. I am not sure about the money issues, but getting a conviction for malicious prosecution would definitely work in the favor of others who are currently being victimized for much the same thing. here is hoping that you win. I find the lower courts ruling that the evidence gathered was insufficient to be way out of line with known rules of law and logic. anyway, good luck in getting this matter resolved.
Understanding is much like a 3-edged-sword. in this: there are always 2 sides and the truth.
A predictable response.
You appear to be capable of wailing, calling people names and little else. Does this not fit your own definition of the word 'pathetic'?
I think it probably does for many people reading your contentless vitriole.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Careful, son, you'll get spittle all over your monitor!
Now, take your lithium like a good little boy and we might all get some peace from you for a while.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
keep playing pretend in your computer fantasy land. i assure you, i am one person in the real word and present a threat to anyone that would attempt to deny me that identity.
you are nothing but a coward attempting to hide in my shadow.
you're completely pathetic. you spend your days wishing people would believe you were me. i spend my days being me. do you NEED to be me, OR do you NEED to NOT BE YOURSELF?
"MichaelKristopeit172" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity. they have hypocritically also registered the username "MichaelKristopeit175".
to the individual responsible: i assume you welcome death. present yourself to me; admit what you've done, then i'll bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
Of course it's 20' away. If it was any closer you'd be spitting all over it. And that 140" sheet? That's called a wall. Don't forget to take your crayon drawings down before using it as your 'visual interface'. Pathetic.
"MichaelKristopeit172" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity. they have hypocritically also registered the username "MichaelKristopeit175".
There are other MichaelKristopeit accounts that mock you. It is pathetic that you do not know that.
to the individual responsible
Individuals. Plural. We encourage everyone to have a MichaelKristopeit account.
actually the SHEET OF FABRIC I INSTALLED **IS** IN FACT A SHEET AND NOT A WALL. you're a presumptuous moron.
you spend your days wishing people would believe you were me. i spend my days being me. do you NEED to be me, OR do you NEED to NOT BE YOURSELF? you're an ignorant hypocrite. a COMPLETE disgrace.
"MichaelKristopeit175" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity.
to the individual responsible: i assume you welcome death. present yourself to me; admit what you've done, then i'll bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
"MichaelKristopeit175" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity.
to the individual responsible: i assume you welcome death. present yourself to me; admit what you've done, then i'll bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
YOU spend YOUR days wishing people would believe you were me.
We mock you. No one, not even you, wants to be you.
i spend my days being me.
You spend your days pretending to be 150+ MichaelKristopeit accounts. And living in some mystery house Google shows whenever a zipcode in WI is entered without an address. And squawking about being pathetic.
do you NEED to be me, OR do you NEED to NOT BE YOURSELF?
We don't need to mock you. We do it out of our own free will - with no voices in our head screaming like a banshee.
you are NOTHING.
YOU spend YOUR days wishing people would believe you were me. i spend my days being me. do you NEED to be me, OR do you NEED to NOT BE YOURSELF? you're an ignorant hypocrite. a COMPLETE disgrace.
"MichaelKristopeit175" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity.
to the individual responsible: i assume you welcome death. present yourself to me; admit what you've done, then i'll bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
Sounds like a good thing to write into the next constitution!
Insanity: voting in the same two parties over and over again and expecting different results
Lots of mods appear to give either Interesting or Insightful instead of Funny because Funny doesn't award karma.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
That's good that it worked out and you got a normal, reasonable guy on the other end. I'm not sure that changes our individual conclusions on the nature of the profession, but I certainly hope my future run-ins with lawyers are anywhere near that straightforward.
That said, that kind of thing seems awfully rare. I'd even guess that, for that guy, it was considered a "failure" by his [client|employer] that he wasn't able extort the additional work without pay. Certainly that defines the character of the management there, not the lawyer himself, but it does illustrate the common perceived utility of a lawyer nowadays. A manipulator for hire... in this case, the modern equivalent of a thug. I think that perception says something about the profession.
Intelligent, dedicated laymen attempting to navigate the courts (and doing anything else that isn't philanthropic) generally have their own interests at heart, not those of the broader society. It is those latter, broader interests that laws are supposed to serve, not the interests of any one individual. The concept is called "rule of law", to be contrasted with "rule of man". Personally, I think where we are is a fine place for us to be.
Of course the chap from TFA was biased. Intrinsically. He was, of course, trying to defend his position and bring a claim against another party. The other guys were biased too- they were trying to argue their case just as much.
You misunderstand what it is that I (and I'm guessing many others, by the tone of the thread) find abhorrent. The law should never be allowed to become so complicated as to become completely opaque to anyone who hasn't dedicated decades to studying it (unless, of course, there really is no alternative). If a person of decent intelligence is willing to dedicate time to researching their case, there really should be no reason they shouldn't be capable of equalling trained lawyers. Lawyers should be a shortcut, a way for people to avoid time consuming research, people who's knowledge can make life easier. They shouldn't be mandatory.
I am trying to get across a concept that others have said far more impressively. Franz Kafka illustrated it well in The Trial (read it, if you haven't). The protagonist is accused, tried and sentenced, in a trial lasting many years, without ever understanding the case against him; he is forced, after many attempts to gain insight, to put himself entirely at his lawyer's mercy. Looking at the state of some of our defamation or intellectual property law, we're not so far from this now.
ur mum's face're an idiot.
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you are NOTHING
"MichaelKristopeit172" is operated by a pathetic individual attempting to steal my identity.
to the individual responsible: i assume you welcome death. present yourself to me; admit what you've done, then i will bring upon you the ultimate punishment for your transgressions.
you spend your days pretending to be me. i spend my days actually being me. do you NEED to be me? OR do you simply NEED to NOT BE YOURSELF?
you're completely pathetic.
with no responsibility comes no respect. your statements aren't incorrect because you don't take credit for them... they are wrong because you're an idiot. you cower in my shadow afraid to take responsibility for your lies.
ur mum's face are an idiot.
why do you cower? what are you afraid of?
you're completely pathetic.
Rising healthcare costs have little to do with malpractice awards -- malpractice costs account for less than 2 percent of healthcare spending. Malpractice costs have been estimated to be about $12 per American a year. So, if you completely eliminated them, you'd have...a dollar a month. Whoop de frickin' do.
"Tort reform" is a shibboleth for the right wing and a way to distract people from the enormous profits that health insurers and Big Phama extract from the system, not a serious proposal to reduce costs.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood