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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.
For some reason, this whole fiasco reminds me of this scene from Office Space.
Where it's not about whether you win or lose, it's about bankrupting the opponent
So, you left a paper trail... Craigslist sales should always be in person, cash, and otherwise as anonymous as possible. Use a separate gmail account, fake name, protect yourself.
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.
Along with
"No warranty from seller"
"Seller assumes no liability"
"All sales final"
"No Refunds"
for district attorneys to file criminal charges against those who are clearly and repeatedly abusing the civil litigation process. Tens of thousands of dollars claimed over a forty dollar printer? It's hard to view this as anything other than theft, and thieves have done hard jail time for far lower dollar values than those sought by the plaintiff in this case. Civil law shouldn't be a lottery, and criminal law should have the power to prevent people from treating it as one.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
While I am not an expert in the US legal system it seems like having the loser pay the legal bills might reduce some of this predatory litigation.
The question is, how much influence does the US electorate have over this kind of decision? People who rely on winning through bankruptcy are also the people who have the kind of money to lobby to maintain the current system.
You don't sell stuff to people on a service that does not review buyers.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
don't sell anything on the internet. i've sold on ebay back in the day when it first started and after a while it's not worth the effort. you don't make anything after all the fees, shipping supplies, time spent packing this stuff and standing in line at the post office to mail it off give old phones to parents and buy new ones for yourself. donate books and movies to your local library. donate old clothing and toys. everything else you simply throw away and stay away from craigslist unless you're looking for sex or real estate
Typically this is solved by labeling the plaintiff as a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vexatious_litigation Vexatious Litigant. Then it becomes harder for the plaintiff to file lawsuits.
because of this one person? when i was in italy in the 90's you needed to bribe people to get home phone service, gasoline was like $8 a gallon, half the country shuts down in july and the other half in august, medicine was straight out of a history book, etc italy is clearly broken
It doesn't. His cased was dismissed from small claims, because he threw out the evidence (printer). He refiled in Superior Court with a bunch of new complaints. He didn't sue for $30,000, what he did was send a Request for Admission to the opponent requesting he admit to owing the 30,000 or the 300,000 or the 600,000. Marion County has a rule that if you don't respond to a Request for Admission in 30 days then you are presumed to have admitted the fact at issue. That was the plaintiff's game here. Send a bunch of requests and hope they don't respond.
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)
or a hitman. most times paying someone to kill someone else is cheaper than paying lawyers
The problem comes from the assumption by the lawmakers that businesses were always honest. They basically said anyone that doesn't answer a legal demand must be guilty, but they made no attempt to ensure that the legal demands were a) actually sent and b) believed to be real, rather than a typical scare tactic used by con men.
The lawmakers in question should be flooded with legal demands from non-existent cases to assist them in learning the era of their ways.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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.
But on the gripping hand [...]
When did the three-armed Moties escape from the blockade?
Umbrella insurance.
Support my political activism on Patreon.
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.
Makes me wish i was John Wick. I'd go waste this dude in the most horrific manner possible and leave a note saying - because he did "X"
If you are at the threshold of itemized deductions donating an item can make almost as much money as selling it used, since you can write off donated items.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
http://www.usatoday.com/story/...
An umbrella insurance policy costs about $200/yr with a $1 million cap. It protects you against lawsuits not covered by home and auto insurance. This one might not qualify because he sold the printer, so it could be argued he was conducting business (which has different liability insurance). But if it was a one-time sale, it might be covered.
Of course it's not protection in the sense of "make such abusive litigation tactics fail so sleazeballs don't try it." It's just protection in the sense of "I won't have to pay for the legal costs of defending myself." The insurance company will probably just pay the guy off to make him go away, thus guaranteeing he'll continue doing the same thing to other people..
I love when people rebut a point by bringing up information that is completely off topic and irrelevant.
by your logic america can only be broken when every other country in the world is better off?
Do action figures count as assets? Asking for a friend.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Edens 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
He certainly didn't find himself constrained by common sense.
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.
He should counter-sue for barratry, libel, slander, arson, extortion, jaywalking and anything else he can think of.
About a million - nah, make it two - should be about right.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
How is this not Barratry or Vexatious Litigation?
Help us, God Emperor Trump. You're our only hope.
But it wasn't just one person. It was an entire court system that wasn't able to say enough is enough before the sale of a $40 printer cost $12,000 dollars. That even though the plaintiff had already thrown away the only evidence that the printer didn't work AND was well known by the court for filing frivolous lawsuits..
As for medicine, in the U.S. you'll pay a lot of specialist fees but not get anything that couldn't have been done just as well by a nurse with a flip book.
I'll bet this guy goes around looking for people with assets. He won't bother suing a poor person. How does one protect oneself from this kind of predatory legal action?
Not necessarily. You want someone with enough money to pay a few thousand bucks but not enough to immediately hire lawyers to deal with your BS. Predatory legal action like this works best against the average middle class guy who won't hire a lawyer until he's already been screwed. Selling a used printer is the perfect mark because it means that you're rich enough to own a few pieces of electronics but still poor enough not to throw a $40 printer in the trash.
A similar situation happened with my brother. One of his employees was suing for sexual harassment and wrongful termination. The lawyers were asking for 500k until my brother produced a cellphone recording of the exchange. He ended up settling with them for 3k because it was cheaper than continuing to pay his lawyer and he wanted them to just go away. Without that recording there would likely have been a very different outcome.
Why not both? Pinning all your hopes on building some utopian system without loopholes seems pretty unreasonable, too.
He's what the Judicial system calls a "Vexatious Litigant".
Sadly, in the US, this is only illegal under California law
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Actually no. You don't pay taxes on garage sale income as long as you are selling things for less money than the lesser of what the item is actually worth and what you paid for them.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
There are already rules against what the guy is doing. "Tort reform" as touted by most people will simply shield the rich and powerful and corporations from ever having to face liability.
that was FDR
If you're scared of your govt then you need to further restrict its powers
Vote 3rd Party in 2016 and beyond
The simple solution here would be to have some sane limits.
IE if plaintiff #1 spends $5k on the case and loses against a guy who spends $100k, maybe #1's liability should be limited to something around $5k.
Or have the judge make a decision -
without basis: loser pays
has basis: IE the situation was complicated enough that yes, a court was needed. No court costs.
Note: "No basis" would include a company dragged into court for something it should darn well have paid for earlier and without the fuss.
I don't read AC A human right
No what he's saying is, by what metric is America broken? How do you determine when something is "broken". What does that even mean? If this one thing means America is broken then every country is broken. If every country is broken is any country broken?
For just 10k I get a guy in Russia that will end this problem once and for all, why should I pay you 30k?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
"When it comes to catching trout, nothing beats the German light infantry"
--Dr. Zoidberg
lose != loose
The RIAA should have this guy on the payroll.
Dark Reflection
He claimed he never received the letters before the default judgement. Shouldn't the plaintiff be required to show proof that the letter was received? Otherwise he could just never send letters and win default judgement after default judgement.
It's high time to add this slimeball Gersh Zavodnik to the ranks of vexacious litigants who abuse the law system. In the article a judge who dismissed his case has already highlighted the plaintiff's abuse of process.
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
But a good chunk of the legal experts in the country INSIST that tort reform isnt necessary!
You are trying to hold America to some undisclosed standard and then you whine when people try to reverse engineer that standard and apply it equally to others.
This is the Internet. The net is so wide here that you are literally quite likely to find a man that has bitten a dog.
You are confusing extremes with the norm.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
I have sold a few things on ebay since 1999 and by few I mean 3 or 4... and out of those I had a buyer claim that the item was broken (despite the fact that the item was brand new in a factory sealed and unopened box).
I decided that it was too much hassle to deal with negative reviews and all that jazz and have not sold anything since. Everything used and unneeded goes straight into the landfill now...
My eyes reflect the stars and a smile lights up my face.
> As for medicine, in the U.S. you'll pay a lot of specialist fees but not get anything that couldn't have been done just as well by a nurse with a flip book.
What kind of flowers do you want at your funeral?
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Not it my city. Get caught without a permit to hold a garage sale, and you'll pay a fine. Neglect to pay sales taxes on the garage sale you got a permit for, and you're in even bigger trouble.
Proverbs 21:19
This is the Internet. The net is so wide here that you are literally quite likely to find a man that has bitten a dog.
I bit my cat once. Not hard, just applying firm pressure with my teeth to the back of his neck. I was holding him, and he was biting me, and it seemed the best way to get the point across. I got a mouthful of slightly dusty fur, but he understood.
The Quirkz Handbook of Self-Improvement for People Who Are Already Pretty Okay
It doesn't. His cased was dismissed from small claims, because he threw out the evidence (printer). He refiled in Superior Court with a bunch of new complaints. He didn't sue for $30,000, what he did was send a Request for Admission to the opponent requesting he admit to owing the 30,000 or the 300,000 or the 600,000. Marion County has a rule that if you don't respond to a Request for Admission in 30 days then you are presumed to have admitted the fact at issue. That was the plaintiff's game here. Send a bunch of requests and hope they don't respond.
Well, then it was the Defendant's tardiness in Responding to the Requests For Admission, and/or NOT doing any Discovery of his own, and/or for NOT filing for Summary Judgment or even a Judgment On The Pleadings, based on the admitted total lack of evidence on the part of the Plaintiff.
IANAL; but I live in Marion County, and have battled with the Superior and Circuit Courts here pro se on more than one occasion.
Lay people should not be allowed to file pro-se. I'm sorry but today the number of lunatic sovereign citizen wackos and basically homeless people filing dozens of nonsense claims trolling for settlements against literally anybody they run into is overwhelming the small claims and lower district courts. It is a massive problem. They abuse the system like crazy and it can take years to get a vexatious litigant order in place against them preventing these lunatics from filing lawsuits. They've ruined the system and the only reform that will work is preventing all non-lawyers from filing suit. The ambulance chasers have licenses they risk. The reality is lawyers generally do no file frivolous actions. Its too expensive and endangers their licenses. They also have houses and assets they aren't about to risk. These pro-se lunatics are literally living in homeless shelters half the time.
Don't documents have to be served in a way that reasonably verifies receipt unless such a method of delivery is impossible?
Yes, you need a permit to have a garage sale, but unless you are running a business of holding garage sales, then as long as you are selling things for less than you paid for them, the sales are not reportable.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Yes there are rules, but the vary state to state, and thus it can get to be very expensive even to get to the point where you can smash the abusive litigant. Perhaps if there massive fines and jail time for abuse of the courts, it might make a difference, but in most cases, all that happens is the litigant has to get a judge's approval before starting a lawsuit, and there are 49 other states in which the litigant can pursue these vexatious suits. In other words, a determined vexatious litigant can get away with a shitload of bad lawsuits before he can finally be stopped.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Sales taxes, perhaps. But he's talking about income taxes.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Sending him a 1099 for stuff like that? I'd have to think about it, but it sounds evil. Especially if they still lose.
That being said, they can deduct legal expenses, so it ends up being a wash.
I don't read AC A human right
Yes, the defendant screwed up a little bit, but any court that allows a plaintiff to play this kind of game is still broken. What you have here is an apparently well known vexatious litigant, and the solution is to remove his ability to file suits or use the court system at all without prior approval.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
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.
Did anyone else notice this?
"Zavodnik, a native of Ukraine who moved to the United States in 1987 under a grant of political asylum"
I'm assuming that he went to the U.S. to escape the U.S.S.R., but that fell to pieces a few years after arriving. I don't know what his current immigration status is, but wouldn't asylum eventually be revoked? Seems like you wouldn't get granted asylum from a government that no longer exist (barring the current political crisis with Crimea, which occurred over 20 years after he left).
If you post as Anonymous Coward, don't expect a reply.
I'm not talking about income taxes. I'm talking about sales taxes.
Proverbs 21:19
"If you have seen further than others, it is because you have stood on the shoulders of giants." - They Might Be Giants
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
and in some case it leads to companies fine print saying we will use our Million dollar legal team on you.
Turns out the moties were the lowest bidder.
They probably tossed in a few War Rats.
Yes, the defendant screwed up a little bit, but any court that allows a plaintiff to play this kind of game is still broken. What you have here is an apparently well known vexatious litigant, and the solution is to remove his ability to file suits or use the court system at all without prior approval.
Hey, I had a civil case in Marion County thrown out because I was tardy in responding to some Discovery that asked for "Everything". I thought I was being clever in replying that I was still "gathering Everything".
The judge, unfortunately, had no sense of humor...
But I still think he should have at least tried a Motion To Dismiss based on the Plaintiff's record of Frivolous and Vexatious Litigation.
That's one of the reasons why Interrogatories ALWAYS ask you to list ALL Past and Pending Litigation you were involved in. Then you file your Motion To Dismiss, with those Interrogatory Responses as "Exhibit A".
Can you IMAGINE the Judge's eyebrow when he/she read the list of Prior/Current Litigation in which this yayhoo was involved???
"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."
Isn't there any way to turn the Internet loose on this guy?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Here is mine: require the judge to enquire into the factual basis of the amount of the claim and then limit any award to a reasonable amount, instead of just accepting the amount claimed by the plaintiff.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Nah, just locked up a good long time. No violence, please.
Basically Zavodnik a legal troll: bleeps around with people for the shear hell of it.
Table-ized A.I.
Tort reform is brought up as a way to reduce insurance costs mostly related to medical malpractice. Except we have had tort reform in states such as Texas and California, and malpractice rates have not gone down.
Off-topic, but since you brought it up ...
I was four years old. My parents had an overly exuberant keeshond that delighted in nipping at me. It is possible the malevolent hound was only being playful and socializing, but to me it was behaving more like a competitive, overbearing sibling. For example, it never nipped at me when an adult was around. One winter day, after we were all outside in the snow, my mom went upstairs and this treacherous canine knocked me down from behind and nipped at my ears "playfully". Still in my one-piece snowsuit and wearing mittens, I'd had enough of this cantankerous pupstart's behavior, and I demonstrated the evolutionary advantages of an opposable thumb by grabbing his snout with both mittened hands, and finishing with a powerful argument delivered by human incisors directly upon his loathsome, black, wet nose!
Naturally, the little bitch shrieked and whined theatrically over the comeuppance, but I stood over him triumphant. "How do you like it?!"
Clever and/or persistent trolls can screw up and/or find holes in ANY SYSTEM, similar to good hackers. If you peck, probe, and obsess long enough, you can probably muck your way into ANY system: legal, technical, and administrative.
I cannot fault the legal system itself in this case so far, other than perhaps for not recognizing law-trolls sooner and putting a summary cap on them. But that would probably require an act of Congress, being each local and state jurisdiction probably has their own peculiarities that can be milked by a good troll.
I've encountered persistent jerks myself. They are scary people.
Table-ized A.I.
"Abolish Rule #36"?
Can't we abolish Rule 34 first?
Costello would have been better off in the long run if Zavodnick had just hit him on the head and jacked his car, like all those other Craigslist buyers.
Stories like this are why whenever I finish with some consumer item that still has some useful life, whether it be a printer or an SLR camera with a set of original lenses, I just give it to my local thrift and take a modest writeoff for the item.
My sister was bitten by a moose once ...
Everything Zavodnik did was pretty brilliant. You would not want to play poker with this guy.
He threw the printer away to make himself seem ridiculous. That was planned. He wanted to look like a crank. What kind of idiot throws away evidence before taking you to small claims court? Then he sends you a weird letter wanting you to admit that you owe him $600,000. What do you do? What would you do if I sent you a registered letter saying that I wanted you to admit to owing me $600,000? You would ignore it like any sane person would...
Did you even bother reading your own link?
"Has previously been declared to be a vexatious litigant by any state or federal court of record in any action or proceeding based upon the same or substantially similar facts, transaction, or occurrence."
That clearly means that other states besides California have vexatious litigant laws. Example, Texas Chapter 11 handles determining if a plaintiff is a Vexatious Litigant.
QUIT USING SHIT WIKIPEDIA AS A SOURCE.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Pardon, that should be Texas Title 2 Chapter 11.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
"Because Costello did not respond to all three requests for admissions within 30 days of receiving them, and did not ask for an extension of time, as required by Indiana trial rules, Costello admitted to the liabilities and damages by default. He also did not appear at a July 2013 hearing, according to court records."
Courts don't like to be ignored. It's the worst possible thing you can do.
Respond promptly and equivocate: "I do not concede your claim. I expect to deny your claim." Equivocation lets you back away from a statement later if it turns out you were wrong or if the statement could have had some unintended legal meaning.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Loser pays would also make it basically impossible to sue any entity that has more money than you. The risk would be far too great, even if you had a legitimate dispute.
Let the judge award "loser pays" only after meeting a high threshold. Such as in situations where no rational person would consider it a legitimate dispute.
I agree. In the state Pennsylvania, state cases have a loser pays provision. You pay a filing fee but will get it awarded back to you if you win your case, as well as reasonable legal fees, etc. Without going into the whole crazy story, I found myself suing an old landlord for damages. While I won the initial case, the landlord was able to appeal... and appeal again after that. I couldn't keep paying the attorney fees to keep going further and so ended up settling, which cost me something like net $1500, rather than winning the $1500 in damages I was hoping for. While that may seem small to some of you, at the time I basically was making minimum wage and used my savings to do it. It wasn't sustainable. Based on that experience, I'd only go to court if I knew I was able to fight all the way to the top state courts, because that's pretty much what you're in for if your opponent has money.
If you're on minimum wage and can't pay the up front filing fees and attorney fees, you're screwed. In principle, you'd get it back -- but how are you going to get the money to initiate it in the first place? And what happens if you do end up losing? The poor in our country get no justice.
"That bastard stole my quote!" -- FDR
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Only if they're NIB
Jesus saves and takes half damage.
America: we're not as bad as Italy!
Maybe Hillary can adopt that slogan.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I compare lawsuits to online PvP gaming. If you win, it's because you were right and superior. If you lose, it's because the other side was abusive and cheated. The largest groups calling for tort reforms are not average citizens but large corporations upset that they occasionally lose. They see what happened to tobacco companies and don't want that to happen again. They have enough money that they try to sway voters by bringing up red herring cases, like the McDonald's coffee case (which was not an abuse of the system, but sounds like it if you leave out all the important details). Some extreme mailing lists have a "crazy lawsuit of the week" to try and convince people that the legal system is out of control, when what really happens is that someone is only filing a suit which will likely never see the light of day. If a law gets passed to disallow crazy lawsuits to be filed then that would essentially stop lawsuits by citizens altogether.
It would seem like the defendant could counter-sue for abuse of process, but I'm not even a secretary for a lawyer so I may be speaking incoherently.
The crazy thing is in small claims it was determined the guy threw the printer out - so the court couldn't actually verify it wasn't working.
Why would the default be me admitting I owed you 30,000 dollars? I thought debt had a little more of a hurdle than this.
That sounds like quite a racket - mail these out to everyone - sue everyone who doesn't respond and wait for the sheriff to collect the checks?
In some jurisdictions, I believe the law allows the judge to award costs to the victor, i.e., the loser pays, but as with damages the actual amount is at the discretion of the judge. That means if HugeMegaCorp, Inc. turn up with a "million dollar" legal team to defend a hundred buck trial against a customer who feels they were unfairly treated, and the customer's complaint isn't upheld by the court but the case had genuine merit, the judge can decide to award less than the million dollar legal fees.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Every time someone uses the legal system to get at someone else in a way we deem "unjust", the bulk of our anger must be aimed not at the hacker, but at the system itself. Because as long as it remains there, it could be used against any one of us.
I don't think you'd feel this way if you were the one being faced with a bill for a $30,000 court-ordered settlement over a $40 printer. My anger is first at foremost at the asshole abusing the system, then the system.
If you have a sales tax form when you get a garage sale permit, then all you have to do is collect the sales tax. You don't pay it out of your profits, you simply remit the taxes that you collected from the buyers. If you don't charge it, then obviously it comes out of your own pocket, but presumably you will, since you would have all the appropriate registration for it anyways.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
We do not know, whether the plaintiff's intent was to expose the flaws in the state's legal system.
Actually, we do know the intent of the plaintiff. He is well-known by the court system (which comes up repeatedly in rulings) for buying stuff online and then suing people. Perhaps he's trying to make a living out of it. But his so-called "exposure" of the "flaws" in Rule 36 only came very late in the process after he had already sought ridiculous action in small claims court and the case had been dismissed. Are you seriously claiming that he filed a case in small claims court under a ridiculous premise so it could be dismissed and then several years later he could take another action to "expose the flaws in the state's legal system"?
Nor do we know, the target really was innocent, actually.
Actually, we do know that the "target" was "innocent," because this is a civil action. The DEFENDANT was either found LIABLE or NOT. (You may want to bother to learn some legal terminology before commenting on what you think is wrong with the system.)
But, even IF the defendant was liable, there is no possible circumstance under which I can imagine that a person should be found liable for a defective $40 printer and have to pay out $6000 to a plaintiff (which was asked for in the first case in small claims court), let alone the $30,000 adjudicated in the later court case. Well, I suppose if the defendant had deliberately and maliciously made modifications to the printer to cause serious injury to the person he sold it to (e.g., printer has new installation that shoots strong acid out at user when turned on), MAYBE I could that -- but there was no claim of anything so dire except the printer may have been defective. At most, the plaintiff should be entitled to the cost of replacement plus a nominal fee for his trouble, no more than a few hundred dollars at most.
This whole thing was ridiculous from the very beginning.
Quite possibly, pan Zavodnik had a valid case â" and if he didn't, Indiana should've dismissed his cases (he filed many) years ago.
Did you even bother reading TFA?? Indiana DID dismiss the case he filed in small claims court. It's unclear why it was even allowed to go forward in a superior court, except that the plaintiff appears to be a lunatic who pestered and annoyed judges and filed motions to have them recused so much that many finally relented... and he probably eventually got a judge who agreed to let them matter go forward. That sounds like blatant abuse of the court system by the plaintiff, not the other way around.
But I'd be happy to hear your proposals on how to correct flaws in such a system... Raise awareness, perhaps? Print buttons, colored ribbons, and bumper stickers: "Abolish Rule #36"?
Uh, once again, RTFA. Also, follow the link in the article to read the actual court ruling... you might learn something. For example, you might learn that Rule 36 actually sounds pretty reasonable as written -- and in its text EXPLICITLY gives discretion to the courts about when to throw out these sorts of demands. And there have been conflicting rulings in the past (which were cited by the higher court ruling) that make the lower court's award of $30,000 a bit ridiculous. The lower court chose a particular reading of Rule 36 that seems incongruous with the way it has often been interpreted... which is why it was reversed on appeal.
Sometimes there's nothing wrong with Rule 36 -- sometimes it's just a judge in error. (And, in this case, it wouldn't surprise me that a judge screwed something up given how much the plaintiff participated in blatant judge shopping.)
Every time someone uses the legal system to get at someone else in a way we deem "unjust", the bulk of our anger must be aimed not at the hacker, but at the system itself. Because as long as it remains there, it could be used against a
This is not the fault of Zavodnik,
It most certainly is.
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,
Actually, the small claims court dismissed the case because it appears that Zavodnik got rid of the printer in an attempt to destroy evidence. (That's what the superior court ruling says.)
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 was a minor procedural flaw that allowed the dismissal to be appealed and reinstated. When that happened, Zavodnik forced a number of judges to recuse themselves from the case after accusing them repeatedly of doing things like conspiring with the defendant. It's perhaps not surprising that he eventually found one willing to listen if for nothing else than to get the damn thing over with.
This is most certainly primarily the fault of Zavodnik, who repeatedly abused the court system in all sorts of ways. Obviously he should have had the right to sue someone for $40 in small claims court, but he basically tried every random loophole he could to tie things up for as long as possible in the courts, including forcing it to act in ways that were less efficient in hopes of keeping his case alive.
Many of the things he exploited are actually important loopholes in our system that prevent various abuses -- like actual overzealous or corrupt judges. Getting rid of those processes would likely be bad for everyone. But Zavodnik used them instead to further a fruitless cause after he seems to have destroyed the only evidence that would have even allowed him to recover his $40.
Admittedly, someone should have put a stop to all of this sooner -- and the court system did try. They were only constrained by the lunacy of the plaintiff in doing things that no actual attorney would ever try (if an attorney did this sort of crap multiple times, they would be sanctioned and perhaps eventually disbarred).
No way. My...I mean, my friend's action figures are for vigorous handling. Fortunately, they're mostly washable.
You are welcome on my lawn.
There is often a strategic element to delaying trial, on the part of the defendant. If he's reasonably certain that he will be convicted, it is highly advantageous to delay the trial for years, because nearly all sentences include credit for time served. If you were arrested, put on trial two weeks later, and sentenced a week after that to three years, you do most of your sentence in prison - more dangerous, almost certainly far from family for visits, etc. But if you delay the trial for two and a half years, lose, and then get sentenced two months later, you only have four months left to serve - and you did the first 32 months in county/city lockup, which is a much easier stretch. Bonus: because you have less than a year left on your sentence, they almost certainly won't even bother sending you to the state prison. You'll do the whole time in local jail.
News flash: You're a fucking idiot inventing conspiracy theories because your either a) a childlike mind incapable of accepting reality or b) a paid shill or c) both.
AGW is happening. The insurance companies know it. The oil producing nations know it. Every fucking physicist in the last hundred years knows that CO2 absorbs IR and emits it as UV, and that means CO2 traps heat. Now, fucking halfwit, unless you have some magic fucking heat sink that makes trapped heat go back into space, stop trying to deny simple fucking physics. Grow the fuck up. The universe doesn't owe your fucking SUV any fucking favors.
Fucking moron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
No. Simply because you can't get money from a rock. If you sue a large company, lose, and bankrupt yourself in the process, the company can try as much as they want to "recoup" money from you. It's just not there. (Something like that happened to McDonald's in the UK, trying to silence two penniless critics with a libel suit. They ended up with a long, expensive, messy lawsuit and unable to recoup any of their costs).
add another burden to the loser
Well, then maybe you should settle if you think you're about to lose? And if you get sued and win the case, why should you have to bear the costs for being the right?
Don't believe everything you read on the internet - Abraham Lincoln
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The current case is no longer about the printer. It's about the defendant allegedly corrupting the small claims court. That's a serious accusation which should not be treated as a small courts case. It's as if the printer case was a means to an end: suing in this other court either to have forum for the plaintiff to expose his conspiracy theories, or to properly fleece the hapless defendant.
Anyone have his address and details? If we all send him "requests for admissions", and he neglects to reply to just a few of them, we should be able to bankrupt him.
economics teaches about incentives, but far simpler is this: dont let government or lawyers charge for doing nothing, and bar them from creating fees ro penalties that raise issues to insanity like this, far far reduce judge and lawyer pay, they are overpaid government welfare workers and a drain making life harder for all, firing all of them and replacing with software and objective law and al lot of doing nothing but repairing injured party if a loss happens IOF it is liable, becasue liability is just an idea, and like many ideas is not applicable in many cases
There was no question "why". You've contributed 0 to the conversation and your posting failed to fail to suck. Try harder next time — should you feel it necessary for the "next time" to ever happen. Remember to logout.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The buyers live in the same jurisdiction as you and would therefore presumably be aware that you were legally obliged to charge sales tax on everything, so it should hardly come as a surprise.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Scumbags like the litigant are not the exception, they are the rule.
What if the tables were reversed and that $40 printer burned down your house? Is it unreasonable to allow court to assess damages that are related to the actual damages?
As I know very little about this case since I wasn't in the courtroom, I can't say if the damages were related to anything actually real, but in the case it was, would you rather the damaged party was limited to the cost of the printer?
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
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If only Zavodnik had taken a course at Trump U, but nooooooo.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
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.
This is why in most countries, the lose pays the winner's costs. Supposedly, the each guy pays his own system was set up so that Brits who had lost property during the Revolution would be discouraged from trying to get it back.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
It doesn't. His cased was dismissed from small claims, because he threw out the evidence (printer). He refiled in Superior Court with a bunch of new complaints. He didn't sue for $30,000, what he did was send a Request for Admission to the opponent requesting he admit to owing the 30,000 or the 300,000 or the 600,000. Marion County has a rule that if you don't respond to a Request for Admission in 30 days then you are presumed to have admitted the fact at issue. That was the plaintiff's game here. Send a bunch of requests and hope they don't respond.
Ah, the old default opt in trick, eh.
Zavodnik should now sue every software company, claiming he has the rights to that technology.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
I've always wondered about those eBay-consignment shops. Sure, they keep almost everything that eBay doesn't take off the top. But to drop a bunch of crap off, get at least something for it, and walk off and not have to deal with the hassle seems rather appealing.