It is reasonable to expect a defendant can pick up the phone or send a letter to avoid default judgment. Just because the plaintiff's counsel screwed up doesn't mean the defendant doesn't have to answer the charges in some way. The easy way here would be "we're not the defendants you're looking for".
You're not thinking in terms of the case. You're applying hindsight now that you know they're the wrong people.
The lawyer filed a complaint with the court and served someone. The court set a date, and nobody showed up or entered a motion to the court disputing anything. That's why there was a default judgment.
Actually, there was only $1 million awarded for the slander. The other $10 million was awarded as punitive damages for failing to appear to argue the case. That's how important the court thinks it is that people answer complaints against them.
If there is nobody to point out that the party is innocent, why should the judge just assume that?
In the case that they were improperly served, they can make a motion that the court has no jurisdiction over them until they are properly served. However, since they should have never been served in the first place, they'll probably start there.
It's actually pretty difficult to not serve a corporation or LLC properly, though, since all you do is find their registered agent on file with their incorporation papers and send it there.
You should honor the summons issued by the court. You should show up or answer it with a motion to dismiss or extend. If people just don't show up for court because they don't feel like it, then the courts don't work real well. Hence, default judgment exists.
There's a good chance that if the judge doesn't fix this on his own after all the press that they can just send a single motion to the clerk of the court asking the judge to set aside the judgement and dismiss the case against them, even after the judgment was made.
You're under a legal obligation to mitigate damages to yourself at all times. You can't allow damages to pile up then win them all back.
A certified letter or even a couple phone calls would have likely straightened the plaintiff's lawyer out. Why fly to some other state or research local lawyers there to represent you in your absence, attend court, argue, and fight for the legal bills when you could spend $12 or so on a notarized affidavit sent through certified mail (and probably be reimbursed for that by her attorney right out of his office's petty cash account)?
You're right. He should have filed against the proper party in the first place. He was acting on the faulty recollection, likely enough, of his client. He still should have double-checked who the proper party was.
The company that got served would have had the plaintiff's lawyer's contact information and contact information for the court. They could have sent affidavits to both for a few dollars for the notary (if they don't employ anyone who is a notary) and a few dollars for certified postage that they had never written anything about the plaintiff and that they were not the proper party to sue. If the judge still ordered them to appear, they could have spent a few hours on local representation for someone to show up and argue for dismissal against the wrong defendant and naming of the proper defendant, then easily been reimbursed for that attorney's fees.
You do realize that this happens often enough -- that the wrong person or company gets served -- that there are established court procedures for dealing with it?
It doesn't cost thousands of dollars to call the plaintiff's lawyer and say, "Hey guy, nice lawsuit, but you want this Scottsdale company that actually owns the site you're suing over. Please get us removed as the defendant before we file against you for criminal malfeasance of the law."
There is no faith in things that are proven. Doubt is an element of faith.
And no, you don't have to believe in anything. Saying something can't be disproved doesn't mean you have to believe it exists. It just means that you can't prove it doesn't exist.
Why would you need to definitively prove Fraggles don't exist? Is someone invoking Fraggles as an explanation for some effect you're seeing in your research?
IANAL, but what will probably happen is this: the $11 million will be set aside regarding this particular defendant, but since they never responded to the suit they'll pay the court costs and some few hundred dollars fine. Then the lawyer for the plaintiff will pay a small fine for filing an improper suit and will file a motion to replace the defendant with the proper defendant. Then the proper defendant will actually show up to court, and a civil trial will actually get under way. That is, if the court doesn't dismiss the case with prejudice for the lawyer being this sloppy in the first place.
In Illinois and Missouri, it is necessary to argue by motion or oral argument at the court that improper defendants be dismissed and proper parties be named. A civil court isn't a criminal court. If you've been summoned to court as a defendant and don't show up, many judges will automatically give the plaintiff default judgement against the defendant. I imagine most other US states have similar rules of the court. In Illinois, a default judgement can be set aside if a successful motion is filed within 30 days of the judgement.
AAMOF, if you fail to appear for a criminal proceeding as a defendant, you may get a bench warrant for your immediate arrest and even be charged (and maybe later found guilty) of an additional crime (FTA for criminal hearings and trials being an actual crime). I've seen judges just let people slide or just pay a small fine if they appear after a first FTA if the initial crime was a minor matter.
I keep referring to Illinois because that's where I live and so it's the jurisdiction that most interests me and is most relevant to me. Your jurisdiction may be different. The jurisdiction for the lawsuit in question is definitely different.
Consult a lawyer if you really need legal advice, but the company that got incorrectly served should be able to get out of the big judgment easily enough.
Failure to appear for a civil action typically is taken as an admission of fault. The owners of the site that got summoned to court should have made it clear they weren't the right site, then they probably wouldn't have even made it to the court date as the defendant on record.
The defendant had a voice. They were summoned to court and refused to show up. They could have just sent a motion to dismiss with prejudice since they weren't the right defendant. They could have even just called her lawyer and said, "Look, we never wrote anything about your client, so we could not have slandered or libeled her. You have the wrong site." Then the lawyer could have done his diligence and filed against the proper party.
I think Hawking was meaning that the god to which he was referring is himself a metaphor, not just that knowing his mind was a metaphor. If one doesn't believe in a creator god, then seeing the universe coming into being as being an act of a creator would be a metaphor, the creator would be a metaphor, and the mind of the creator would be a metaphor.
Isn't saying that you've disproved something that can't be detected or tested by the very definitions of the people you're debating warping science?
Invoking a being outside the physical laws violates Occam's Razor. Dismissing philosophically something that can't be disproved using the scientific method violates the falsifiability principle.
If something isn't falsifiable, stating that it is true or false is simply, unscientific. To say that there is a god or isn't a god is unscientific. To say you can't be sure but that a god is superfluous to your explanation of things is perfectly scientific (so long as a god remains superfluous to all explanations in science, which so far remains the case).
Stating that a supernatural being outside the physical limitations of the universe and of time either does or does not exist based on the physical limitations of the universe and of time and of our still quite limited ability to measure and explain those limitations is poor physics.
I mean, whose definition of God, gods, demigods, angels, demons, spirits, souls, or whatever do we even use to start looking? How do we test?
Some philosophy is from different branches of philosophy than science. You don't discuss metaphysics and theology from physics. Physics is empirical and objective. Once you violate empiricism and objectivity, you've violated science.
Science is a method. Really, the central part of science is the scientific method. You hypothesize, you design an experiment with as good of controls as you can, you test, and you adjust your hypothesis according to the results.
Please explain to me your experimental setup to either prove or disprove of a god, two gods, a thousand gods, that were are all a part of a god, that we humans are all gods, or that everything with life is some form of god.
If you want to talk about branches of philosophy, since philosophy is about trying to winnow the truth, then science is an objective and empirical branch of philosophy. Subjective religious experiences, unconfirmed reports of ancient scribes, and a general sense of a higher being are not objectively and empirically testable conditions.
Believe what you want. Science can't prove it for you, but it can't disprove it for those who disagree with you. Some things require faith, and if you're a follower of something that requires faith then the organized portion of your religion likely frowns on your quest for scientific proof of your beliefs.
It's entirely fair for someone to say a creator is not necessary to an explanation for as long as we ever don't actually develop some way to detect a creator. Evidence of a creator may never be found within our frame of reference in the universe even if a creator exists that does meddle in everyday affairs. Science may never answer the question, and it certainly hasn't yet.
Occam only meant that we can't invoke a more complicated explanation than necessary within science. Since science can neither prove nor disprove something with no empirical evidence, the whole question is just completely outside the realm of science.
One could simply leave it unanswered, but I think it takes as much faith to reject something that science can't disprove as it does to accept something that science can't prove.
The idea that atheism takes faith is true. Agnostics don't need faith. Theists and atheists both do. One could even say they were agnostic and leaning towards no god or gods and no souls, but to be honest they'd have to admit they can't prove those don't exist.
It's too bad all the innocent people have to be punished without a trial for something to prevent crime. That's especially true since it won't prevent crime, and only may make it easier to prosecute criminals after the crime is committed. In fact, it will likely cause more crime, like armed robbery of people with cell phones so the crooks have phones that aren't tracked to them.
Crime is a funny concept. When you attack an innocent person and injure them, that's a crime. When you steal from someone who has worked hard for their possessions and it's not saving you from absolute starvation, that's a crime. However, if your government is committing crimes against you is it really criminal to protect yourself?
Passing laws that can be easily broken and will be regularly broken, and only bothering to enforce them when it suits the government's whims is corruption.
It's a quad-core chip. Each core has two integer, two load and store, one binary floating point, and one decimal floating point unit. Up to 24 CPUs can be placed in the frame. It can connect to another whole rack of POWER7 blades running AIX as an application accelerator platform.
The z196 is for the stuff a mainframe is good at: big batches and fast I/O. The application accelerator is for stuff the clusters of supermicro servers are good at. As a hybrid system connected across the GX bus, it should pump data in and out of applications out pretty well.
Slashdot Mirror
It is reasonable to expect a defendant can pick up the phone or send a letter to avoid default judgment. Just because the plaintiff's counsel screwed up doesn't mean the defendant doesn't have to answer the charges in some way. The easy way here would be "we're not the defendants you're looking for".
You could also use something like IMS if the hierarchy is so strong. Not all DBMSes are relational, after all.
You're not thinking in terms of the case. You're applying hindsight now that you know they're the wrong people.
The lawyer filed a complaint with the court and served someone. The court set a date, and nobody showed up or entered a motion to the court disputing anything. That's why there was a default judgment.
Actually, there was only $1 million awarded for the slander. The other $10 million was awarded as punitive damages for failing to appear to argue the case. That's how important the court thinks it is that people answer complaints against them.
If there is nobody to point out that the party is innocent, why should the judge just assume that?
In the case that they were improperly served, they can make a motion that the court has no jurisdiction over them until they are properly served. However, since they should have never been served in the first place, they'll probably start there.
It's actually pretty difficult to not serve a corporation or LLC properly, though, since all you do is find their registered agent on file with their incorporation papers and send it there.
You should honor the summons issued by the court. You should show up or answer it with a motion to dismiss or extend. If people just don't show up for court because they don't feel like it, then the courts don't work real well. Hence, default judgment exists.
There's a good chance that if the judge doesn't fix this on his own after all the press that they can just send a single motion to the clerk of the court asking the judge to set aside the judgement and dismiss the case against them, even after the judgment was made.
You're under a legal obligation to mitigate damages to yourself at all times. You can't allow damages to pile up then win them all back.
A certified letter or even a couple phone calls would have likely straightened the plaintiff's lawyer out. Why fly to some other state or research local lawyers there to represent you in your absence, attend court, argue, and fight for the legal bills when you could spend $12 or so on a notarized affidavit sent through certified mail (and probably be reimbursed for that by her attorney right out of his office's petty cash account)?
You're right. He should have filed against the proper party in the first place. He was acting on the faulty recollection, likely enough, of his client. He still should have double-checked who the proper party was.
The company that got served would have had the plaintiff's lawyer's contact information and contact information for the court. They could have sent affidavits to both for a few dollars for the notary (if they don't employ anyone who is a notary) and a few dollars for certified postage that they had never written anything about the plaintiff and that they were not the proper party to sue. If the judge still ordered them to appear, they could have spent a few hours on local representation for someone to show up and argue for dismissal against the wrong defendant and naming of the proper defendant, then easily been reimbursed for that attorney's fees.
You do realize that this happens often enough -- that the wrong person or company gets served -- that there are established court procedures for dealing with it?
It doesn't cost thousands of dollars to call the plaintiff's lawyer and say, "Hey guy, nice lawsuit, but you want this Scottsdale company that actually owns the site you're suing over. Please get us removed as the defendant before we file against you for criminal malfeasance of the law."
There is no faith in things that are proven. Doubt is an element of faith.
And no, you don't have to believe in anything. Saying something can't be disproved doesn't mean you have to believe it exists. It just means that you can't prove it doesn't exist.
Why would you need to definitively prove Fraggles don't exist? Is someone invoking Fraggles as an explanation for some effect you're seeing in your research?
IANAL, but what will probably happen is this: the $11 million will be set aside regarding this particular defendant, but since they never responded to the suit they'll pay the court costs and some few hundred dollars fine. Then the lawyer for the plaintiff will pay a small fine for filing an improper suit and will file a motion to replace the defendant with the proper defendant. Then the proper defendant will actually show up to court, and a civil trial will actually get under way. That is, if the court doesn't dismiss the case with prejudice for the lawyer being this sloppy in the first place.
In Illinois and Missouri, it is necessary to argue by motion or oral argument at the court that improper defendants be dismissed and proper parties be named. A civil court isn't a criminal court. If you've been summoned to court as a defendant and don't show up, many judges will automatically give the plaintiff default judgement against the defendant. I imagine most other US states have similar rules of the court. In Illinois, a default judgement can be set aside if a successful motion is filed within 30 days of the judgement.
AAMOF, if you fail to appear for a criminal proceeding as a defendant, you may get a bench warrant for your immediate arrest and even be charged (and maybe later found guilty) of an additional crime (FTA for criminal hearings and trials being an actual crime). I've seen judges just let people slide or just pay a small fine if they appear after a first FTA if the initial crime was a minor matter.
e-zine article on FTA
Illinois Pro Bono page on civil actions
I keep referring to Illinois because that's where I live and so it's the jurisdiction that most interests me and is most relevant to me. Your jurisdiction may be different. The jurisdiction for the lawsuit in question is definitely different.
Consult a lawyer if you really need legal advice, but the company that got incorrectly served should be able to get out of the big judgment easily enough.
Failure to appear for a civil action typically is taken as an admission of fault. The owners of the site that got summoned to court should have made it clear they weren't the right site, then they probably wouldn't have even made it to the court date as the defendant on record.
The defendant had a voice. They were summoned to court and refused to show up. They could have just sent a motion to dismiss with prejudice since they weren't the right defendant. They could have even just called her lawyer and said, "Look, we never wrote anything about your client, so we could not have slandered or libeled her. You have the wrong site." Then the lawyer could have done his diligence and filed against the proper party.
I think Hawking was meaning that the god to which he was referring is himself a metaphor, not just that knowing his mind was a metaphor. If one doesn't believe in a creator god, then seeing the universe coming into being as being an act of a creator would be a metaphor, the creator would be a metaphor, and the mind of the creator would be a metaphor.
Isn't saying that you've disproved something that can't be detected or tested by the very definitions of the people you're debating warping science?
Invoking a being outside the physical laws violates Occam's Razor. Dismissing philosophically something that can't be disproved using the scientific method violates the falsifiability principle.
If something isn't falsifiable, stating that it is true or false is simply, unscientific. To say that there is a god or isn't a god is unscientific. To say you can't be sure but that a god is superfluous to your explanation of things is perfectly scientific (so long as a god remains superfluous to all explanations in science, which so far remains the case).
Stating that a supernatural being outside the physical limitations of the universe and of time either does or does not exist based on the physical limitations of the universe and of time and of our still quite limited ability to measure and explain those limitations is poor physics.
I mean, whose definition of God, gods, demigods, angels, demons, spirits, souls, or whatever do we even use to start looking? How do we test?
Some philosophy is from different branches of philosophy than science. You don't discuss metaphysics and theology from physics. Physics is empirical and objective. Once you violate empiricism and objectivity, you've violated science.
and binds us and flows through us, binds the whole galaxy together
Science is a method. Really, the central part of science is the scientific method. You hypothesize, you design an experiment with as good of controls as you can, you test, and you adjust your hypothesis according to the results.
Please explain to me your experimental setup to either prove or disprove of a god, two gods, a thousand gods, that were are all a part of a god, that we humans are all gods, or that everything with life is some form of god.
If you want to talk about branches of philosophy, since philosophy is about trying to winnow the truth, then science is an objective and empirical branch of philosophy. Subjective religious experiences, unconfirmed reports of ancient scribes, and a general sense of a higher being are not objectively and empirically testable conditions.
Believe what you want. Science can't prove it for you, but it can't disprove it for those who disagree with you. Some things require faith, and if you're a follower of something that requires faith then the organized portion of your religion likely frowns on your quest for scientific proof of your beliefs.
It's entirely fair for someone to say a creator is not necessary to an explanation for as long as we ever don't actually develop some way to detect a creator. Evidence of a creator may never be found within our frame of reference in the universe even if a creator exists that does meddle in everyday affairs. Science may never answer the question, and it certainly hasn't yet.
Occam only meant that we can't invoke a more complicated explanation than necessary within science. Since science can neither prove nor disprove something with no empirical evidence, the whole question is just completely outside the realm of science.
One could simply leave it unanswered, but I think it takes as much faith to reject something that science can't disprove as it does to accept something that science can't prove.
The idea that atheism takes faith is true. Agnostics don't need faith. Theists and atheists both do. One could even say they were agnostic and leaning towards no god or gods and no souls, but to be honest they'd have to admit they can't prove those don't exist.
It's too bad all the innocent people have to be punished without a trial for something to prevent crime. That's especially true since it won't prevent crime, and only may make it easier to prosecute criminals after the crime is committed. In fact, it will likely cause more crime, like armed robbery of people with cell phones so the crooks have phones that aren't tracked to them.
Why not? It's easy enough to get a fake copy of anything else from China.
Crime is a funny concept. When you attack an innocent person and injure them, that's a crime. When you steal from someone who has worked hard for their possessions and it's not saving you from absolute starvation, that's a crime. However, if your government is committing crimes against you is it really criminal to protect yourself?
It's been proposed in the US legislature, too. It just hasn't been passed and signed into law yet.
You can buy cards with voucher codes at convenience stores for cash, then put the voucher codes in online.
Passing laws that can be easily broken and will be regularly broken, and only bothering to enforce them when it suits the government's whims is corruption.
ummmm.......
It's a quad-core chip. Each core has two integer, two load and store, one binary floating point, and one decimal floating point unit. Up to 24 CPUs can be placed in the frame. It can connect to another whole rack of POWER7 blades running AIX as an application accelerator platform.
The z196 is for the stuff a mainframe is good at: big batches and fast I/O. The application accelerator is for stuff the clusters of supermicro servers are good at. As a hybrid system connected across the GX bus, it should pump data in and out of applications out pretty well.