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Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves
dex writes "The law firm of Milberg Weiss, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Pokemon lawsuit, have discovered they are coporate counsel for one of the defendants. According to this article they will probably now be barred from participating on either side. " See the recent story about it on Slashdot.
The difference here is that the total purpose of the Pokemon cards is to play a game--a gambling game, while the baseball cards are mainly there to collect.
So long as they say "collectable," they're okay. But with the Pokemon cards, they're for a game, which makes it gambling.
Honestly, the defense for this is the exact same as the one against gun control. The argument is that you're purchasing them for a different purpose, or that they're designed for a different purpose. While the physical consequences of card misuse aren't quite so severe as gun misuse, there are still psychological ramifications to consider.
Personally I think the courts will agree with you that it's ridiculous. We're talking about a country that insists guns don't kill people, people kill people.
But just because they think it's ridiculous doesn't mean the parents don't have a point. I mean, those Barbies, Tamagotchis, etc. are collectible too, but you don't see little kids trying to cheat eachother out of a rare one on the playground, do you?
Maybe I'm just forgetful, but I don't remember anyone ever gambling over a Tickle-Me-Elmo..
James
The info from the pokeleague is here. I posted it on the earlier story, though I doubt anyone read it.
...but this, this is beautiful. Now we have idiot vulture lawyers to go with idiot absentee parents - none of whom take any responsibility for anything. These aren't real lawyers, they're late-night ambulance chasers with delusions of grandeur. Schmucks, the lot of them.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I *love* how lawyers talk about "just discovering" a dual-agency representation as if they had just uncovered something they'd misplaced a long time ago.
You *know* they knew it up front -- when was the last time a law firm went "Wait. Who are my clients again?" -- and you know they would do it as long as they felt they could get away with it.
These kind of shennanigans shouldn't go unpunished. They should be forced to cede all of their billings for their newest client (in this case, the plaintiff) to whomever the plaintiff chooses as replacement counsel and at the hourly rate the new counsel charges, as well as deducting all billings accrued during the dual agency representation from their original client.
Unless you slap lawyers on their wrists when they reach into the cookie jar, they tend to keep reaching into the cookie jar.
But their "Join A Class Action" web application form has to be seen to be believed. They really do have a page with I am interested in participating in an action against the following company:, and a long selection box.
This has been covered already.. If you don't believe me, check this post on that "previous discussion".. It even includes the same link.. Ha! ;)
~ Kish
Actually, this is standard practice now. I recently got into a car accident with myself, but it was really my fault, so I sued me. Sure, my driver's licence is chock full of red marks, but the money comes out of the insurance company's pocket anyway. And the returns are higher than my increased insurance premium, so I take home a little at the end of the day. I'm suing myself for abuse next ;-)
Ah, the joys of MPD.
Bad things often happen to good people,
It is up to them to see that they remain good.
When the same law firm represents both sides on "Ally McBeal," there doesn't seem to be any problem. Hmmm... I'm starting to think maybe that show is a little unrealistic.
I heard about that one. It wasn't the Columbine one, it was one of the shootings that preceded it.
The thing about it is, the people in that one didn't care at all about justice. All they wanted was revenge and someone other than themselves to blame for the fact that they failed to instill a sense of right and wrong in their child.
In other words, similar to what's going on with the Pokemon cards, only this incident fortunately has a much smaller body count (though the brain-cell count is staggering).
Should it be thrown out of court? Most definitely.
Does it mean "Legal Precedent"? Actually, I'm not as certain. You see, one thing about baseball card manufacturers is that they don't typically divide their cards into common, uncommon, and rare like the game manufacturers do; they print more or less the same amount of every card (the value initially comes from factors other than rarity, and the rarity only comes long after the cards aren't printed anymore). That's probably the tactic the lawyers will use this time ("OK, so baseball cards aren't gambling, but...")
The difference here is that the total purpose of the Pokemon cards is to play a game--a gambling game, while the baseball cards are mainly there to collect.
Nice, except for one thing: Pokemon is no more a gambling game than chess. Yes, with some of the older card games you played "for ante" (before each game each player picks a card at random from his or her deck and sets it aside; the winner keeps these cards). Pokemon was not designed to be played this way.
Yes, some kids have created a variation of the game where you do play for ante. But this is not the way the game is meant to be played. If you go back to the original Gameboy game, the first rule of etiquette is that you never take another trainer's Pokemon; that rule spills over into the card game. People make side bets on other games, like golf and billiards, all the time; does this mean that those games should be illegal too? If not, then no one has any business screaming about Pokemon for that reason, because it is no different.
A design engineer died and arrived at the Pearly Gates. The gatekeeper, looking over his lists said "Sorry buddy you're name isn't on here, you're gonna have to leave." The sad engineer departed for hell.
Resigned to his fate, he soon set about improving the living areas. Within a few weeks he had drafted plans and schematics for air conditioning, television, and refrigerators.
A few weeks later, God calls up Satan and asks him how things are going.
The devil replies "Great! We got this engineer and he's put in air conditioning, escalators and flushing toilets. Next month we begin construction of his prototype satellite TV system."
God says "You have an engineer?! Send him back up here right away!"
Satan replies "No way am I letting him go! He's on my board of director's now, and I'm keeping him."
"No way, you can't do that. I'll sue!"
The devil laughs uproariously, and says "Oh yeah, and where are YOU gonna get any lawyers??"
- fog
...according to my lovely wife, who works as a senior claims analyst for a national insurance company here [and has a disturbingly broad acquaintance with the civil law machinery]. It's a commonplace practice to do what is called a 'conflict search' when a big suit comes up, but sometimes it goes wrong, or just doesn't get done.
It seems to me that there are only a very few real surprises in the practice of law...this is a very minor one.
Token
"Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves"
If I didn't know better, I'd think I was reading The Onion.
These guys just seem like massive litigation machines. They probably believe that you can sue anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat. Every once and a while, they'll be right about something, and get a huge settlement. That settlement pays for all of their other suits, and they keep going.
The downside to this is that our court system is now clogged with silly lawsuits. This just makes it harder for the occasional legitimate case to reach trial.
Lawyers at Wilmerg Beiss expressed dismay today that their own law firm would engage in a frivolous suit against one of their clients. They promised to counter-sue themselves for all legal expenses incurred.
A top level firm member noted that they took their own allegations of immoral conduct by their client very seriously and were considering an action. The client's spokesperson noted that they were also thinking of a slander action, but thought it prudent to find new representation first, despite being quite impressed with the firm's flexibility.
My girlfriend is in law school, so I teased her about the "sign up online" form. She told me that these firms bringing class action suits are actually obligated to publicize the case (via newspaper ads, etc) in order to include all interested / qualified parties so that the subset of people who originally decided to complain aren't privy to "unjust enrichment" It makes sense for the legal system to get as many people as are interested involved up front because if the suit results in a huge award, other parties who might have been eligible will all bring suits of their own. Better to get everyone involved from the start in one large suit rather than twenty smaller ones. She wasn't sure the intention of these policies was to have web-based signup forms, but, hey, whatever. Law on the Internet...
I'm not too big a fan of this lawyer crap, but I just thought I'd pass on some info that came my way.
-Dan