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Man Sued For $30K Over $40 Printer He Sold On Craigslist (usatoday.com)
An anonymous reader cites an article on USA Today: Selling a used, black-and-white printer through Craigslist seemed simple and straightforward to Doug Costello. It wasn't. What the 66-year-old Massachusetts man didn't know then is that he would spend the next 6 and a half years embroiled in a complicated and confusing legal dispute in Indiana over that printer, which, according to its buyer, was broken. He would find himself liable for about $30,000 in damages. He would pay a lawyer at least $12,000 in his battle to escape the legal mess. And it all started with a piece of hardware he sold online for about $40 in 2009. With shipping and other costs, the total was less than $75, according to court records.Gersh Zavodnik, the printer's buyer, has been described as "prolific, abusive litigant" who has brought dozens of lawsuits against individuals and businesses. He often asks for "astronomical" damages.
Where it's not about whether you win or lose, it's about bankrupting the opponent
Loser pays would tamp down on a lot of people who use the process to punish people.
No matter where you go, there you are.
He's supported and part of a whole crowd of citizens that like fleecing people by abusing the law. Why don't you advocate changing the horrible system that allows this shit in the first place? Sending one of them away isn't going to change a thing.
Therefore, by the (faulty) logic you're using, you're just a cow with a keyboard - osu-neko (2604)
The winning technique used by the plaintiff was thus:
The judge, who awarded him $30K (plus interest), acknowledged the amount is "seemingly high" and the judgment "may seem extreme for the breach of contract for the purchase of a printer." But he wrote that he's constrained by how the Supreme Court had previously interpreted a state trial rule, called Rule 36, which sets the 30-day deadline for responding to requests for admissions.
The appeal court noted:
Yes, he did, you dimwits. You sat on that rule for years and saw nothing wrong with it. You saw nothing wrong with it applied by your fellow pedigreed lawyers acting just as predatory — if only a little less obviously — against others. Suddenly, a man comes around filing his own lawsuits, representing himself in court — and you find yourself bound by your own arcane rules.
"Oh, but we did not mean for it be used that way." Well, you should not have written it that way then...
Whether the sold printer was broken, whether the seller really did try to sell a lemon — that's small potatoes. What pan Zavodnik exposed was the incompetence of Indiana's judges. Hurrah for the hacker!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Anybody can sue anybody for anything. That's how the system works. To counterbalance the potential for abuse in such a system, filers of frivolous suits are often subject to awards of attorney's fees plus sanctions for dragging blameless defendants into court. What you cannot do is bungle your defense on the assumption that a judge will eventually see you're being screwed and throw the case out. How is a judge supposed to adjudicate a dispute between two unrepresented parties who don't know or follow the rules, and both claim they're right? This guy got himself into a huge procedural mess by failing to respond properly in his first response to the lawsuit. If you get sued, especially by a litigious moron, hire an attorney immediately. These things NEVER get easier to handle later on, and it is NEVER better to try it yourself first. The best defenses to ridiculous lawsuits MUST be raised immediately, correctly, and aggressively. You want the system to work differently? Talk to your legislators. Until then, lawyer up.
I am a geek attorney, but not your geek attorney unless you've already retained me. This is not legal advice.
None of them would have helped here, since the actual facts never went to court. Basically if someone files a crazy lawsuit and motions you must respond or lose by default. The purpose is to avoid stalling and to get as many things as possible settled so the court can only deal with the issues in dispute, but the "fallback strategy" is not good. If the motion is not answered it should go to the court for a court order, if the court order is not answered it should go to contempt. Having a "non-action" count as admission should be a last resort.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Not being able to sue over someone outside of small claims court for a $40 printer is not a Utopian society it is plain common sense.
Deporting what I assume are citizens, over a what is essentially a minor dispute, no one was killed, or hurt in the matter. Is essentially the same type insane overreaction that causes a $40 dispute to escalate to a $30K court case. If someone just keeps suing give them a warning or two that if they continue to do so they will be band from filing any further legal action.
This is not the fault of Zavodnik, it is the fault of the legal system that allowed it in the first place. Any sane judge should have just awarded one of them $40, any sane court of appeal should just have told the person who filed the appeal, stop wasting our time, and charged them a couple of hundred dollars in admin fees.
There no need for utopia here.
The issue here is that there is no evidence that he was ever served with the requests for admissions (he says he wasn't):
"Costello said he never received the requests for admissions and was not notified of the hearing."
I don't know how process serving works in that state, but in my state there is a record if someone was served with a summons or legal document. It seems inane that there appears to be no such verification in this case.
Enigma