I would too, but judges are typically intelligent enough to realize that a $1 offer, at less than 1% of what they could get for a win on a single song, $300 is also much less than the statutory damages for a single violation. Why is $300 more reasonable than $1, then?
First, I believe that the judge has to accept the deal. In other words, it needs to be a good faith attempt to offer reasonable compensation for the 'damage' that has been done. Why should a judge second-guess whether or not $1 is reasonable? The judge can't speak for the plaintiff.
In this case, $300 is almost certainly not reasonable compensation. Statutory damages for even 1 infringement are between $750 and $150,000. How could $300 be any more or less reasonable than $1 when the minimum judgment, assuming the defendant was guilty at all, would be $750?
Second, offering $1 is silly because the 'you pay for me' effect only kicks in if the finial judgment is that less then $1 of damage is done. But what does the defendant have to lose by offering? Worst case scenario for the defendant is that plaintiff rejects the offer and is awarded more than $1 in damages. This is the same result as if the defendant had never made the offer to begin with. There appears to be no penalty for the defendant to make a stupid offer of $1.
Think of it like this. Defendant offers plaintiff a $1 judgment. The three possible outcomes for the defendant are:
Plaintiff accepts. Defendant pays plaintiff $1 and everybody goes home.
Plaintiff rejects and the case goes to trial. Plaintiff is awarded more than $1. This is the same outcome as if the judgment offer was never made at all.
Plaintiff rejects and the case goes to trial. Plaintiff is not awarded any judgment. Plaintiff has to pay defendant's legal costs.
My point is, the defendant has nothing to lose and everything to gain.
You have missed the point completely.
Because they're less likely to take it than an actual, reasonable offer, The defendant wins whether or not the plaintiff accepts the offer. If the plaintiff accepts, then the defendant gets off with a measly $1 judgment. If the plaintiff declines, then the defendant is guaranteed free legal counsel if he prevails, but suffers no penalty if he loses.
if the judge sees you being a twit it'll factor into future decisions. I would be surprised to learn that a judge reacted in a hostile manner to any motion that could potentially settle the dispute.
Surely I must be missing something here. What is to stop every North Carolina civil defendant from offering a $1 judgment to the plaintiff? What does the defendant have to lose?
It would seem that the worst case for the defendant is that the plaintiff doesn't accept and then the defendant is no better of worse off than he was before. But for the plaintiff, the stakes are huge.
First of all, finding out the sex of a fetus is an extremely modern technology.
Secondly, why would parents need access to abortifacients in order to get rid of unwanted females? Infanticide is much easier, and more reliable. Anyone who thinks that infanticide is difficult either physically or emotionally has never had a newborn.
Excluding outliers is valid, as long as you know why you are excluding them. A lot of times a framework is developed to explain a general trend, but not intended to explain every situation.
None of these 10 statements were meant to be universally correct. Wealthy parents more likely to have boys? How does that explain Paris and Nikki Hilton? I doesn't, but that isn't the point.
Regarding the female suicide bombers, perhaps their rationale wasn't sex-related at all? Maybe they lost a family member or loved one in the fighting? Maybe they just really, really believe in the cause?
So what's the use in a theory that doesn't explain the entire situation? Consider this: maybe if young Muslim males had more access to mates, there wouldn't even be a cause. It'd be too hard to find a steady supply of young, impressionable males to kill themselves and abandon their families. That females are willing to join the ranks of the males is irrelevant if the rules of the game are changed fundamentally.
I have familiarity with this, because my wife has an expensive and lifelong pre-existing condition.
The bottom line is, if you've had health coverage for 12 months or more, there is no such thing as a pre-existing condition in the US. An insurer for an individual policy and accept or reject you based on your pre-existing condition, he can charge you a higher rate based on your pre-existing condition, but he cannot accept you but refuse to cover whatever your pre-existing condition is.
Furthermore, if you are joining a group plan (any plan offered by your employer is going to be a group plan) there is also no such thing as a pre-existing condition. The plan must take you, you only pay the group rate, and they must cover your condition, assuming that the plan normally covers that condition.
The above has been the case since 1996. Your experience may vary if it was pre-HIPAA. Some assembly required. Batteries not included. I am not a lawyer.
I'm not sure that you've correctly identified the cause of your suffering.
Obviously I don't know you or your situation, but I have a hard time believing that any hiring manager or admissions officer would blackball you for having a bad year while going through medical problems, and then once the problems were fixed you did great. Hell, my freshman grades were horseshit and that was because I was too drunk and high to do any better. Your excuse sounds a lot better than mine during an interview.;)
Have you considered that you are suffering because of some other issue in your credentials? How far are you getting in the hiring/admissions process?
Unless you are applying to med school, your story just doesn't compute.
Nothing is required or not required on a resume. You can defecate on a piece of paper and call it your resume. It won't get you any job offers, but the resume police aren't going to pound down your door, either.
For a college resume, it's pretty much expected that recruiters are going to want to know your GPA at one point or another. Frankly, I can't remember if I put my college GPA on my resume or not.
You can always keep your options open. Go through on-campus recruiting and see what happens. If you don't like the result, you can always go back to school.
What work did you do full time? If you were in an IT-related position, definitely don't repeat courses. You'll do fine in your job search based on your experience. If, on the other hand, you worked full time at McDonalds, you can still demonstrate your experience on the open source project.
Experience means more than grades. Many CS grads have poor grades. You will probably be pleasantly surprised when you go through on-campus recruiting.
The man just said that the evidence accepted by the court was false.
He had two chances to demonstrate this to two judges who are used to seeing both real and manufactured evidence. Salahi can whine and moan in his blog all he wants, but the fact of the matter is, he couldn't convince not one, but two skeptical judges that the evidence was false. If I have to choose whom to believe, I'm going to believe two trained and experienced judges over some whiny blogger.
He knew what the evidence was, and he should have come prepared, especially at the second trial, to refute it.
Since justice has, is, and will be for sale to the highest bidder in the social compact we accept, the defendant can never win.
This is an idiotic statement. Salahi lost in small claims court, where no lawyers are allowed. It's just one person vs. another, and a judge who uncovers the truth.
The truth has been uncovered, and justice has been served.
Even settling is not great for gateway. It still sends the message that if you have a dispute with gateway, the best way to get action is an SCC filing and skipping out on arbitration.
This would be costly for gateway, because arbitration is cheaper for them than going to court. They want to string this guy up and make him pay dearly for skipping arbitration.
And yes, I know the disclaimers saying "if one part of this is void, the rest stands". Nu-uh. Sorry, if part of your contract is illegal or "against good customs", the whole contract is void.
That may be true in your jurisdiction, but in the US, what you have said is false.
What you are talking about is referred to as a Severability clause, and it is definitely valid and binding.
In general, it is a bad idea to agree to things with your fingers crossed. Judges really hate that, and if you ever have to defend yourself in court, you will face an uphill battle to prove that you acted in good faith. Probably because you were acting in bad faith by indicating your agreement to a contract you had no intention of ever following or even reading.
To gateway, this is about way more than this one case. This is about defending their EULA and binding arbitration requirements.
What gateway really doesn't want is to get socked with tens of thousands of SCC lawsuits. That's why they are wasting resources on this stupid case instead of just giving the poor guy a new machine and a letter of apology for he poor customer service he received.
When you purchase shrink-wrapped software, in addition to the media and printed manual, you are purchasing a license to use the software. That license is granted by the maker of the software and is transferred to you by the retailer.
While it is true that the sales agreement is between you and the retailer, the license agreement is between you and the software maker. The retailer doesn't own the copyright on that software, and as such, may not distribute the software directly. He may only purchase a license to use the software and then sell that license to you, the consumer.
Personally, I dislike EULAs because they are:
normally impossible to read before purchase
Non-negotiable, and
in the real world, nobody reads them
Regarding their enforceability, this has never been proved one way or another. On the one hand, given the reasons I listed above, it seems clear that an EULA is not a meeting of the minds, so how could they be enforceable?
But on the other hand, the end user nonetheless indicated his agreement to the EULA by clicking "I Agree", so can we not assume that when a person says, "I Agree" that he, in fact, agrees?
Judges, in my experience, don't typically like to invalidate contracts unless a party acted in bad faith. But who would appear to be acting in bad faith in this situation? The software maker? Or the end user, who said "I Agree" but in fact, did not agree and further had no intention of following or even reading the agreement that he declared his agreement to abide by?
Changing partners doesn't change anything. You'll still find yourself in a relationship of unbalanced power; just with a different girl and you'll be putting the seat down for her as well. That's not real power.
Please let me assure you that I do not put the toilet seat down for my wife.
Furthermore, if I did for whatever reason decide to change partners, I would not put the seat down for my new partner, either.
Principle of token favors? Net effort expended? Minor graces?
Where do you find these shrewish women?
Since the man has failed to perform these graces, he "would clearly prefer to live alone."
Perhaps my wife has already made that calculation. That I would prefer living alone to being some woman's doormat, and that she'd be better served not acting like a stuck-up cunt.
Of course, I know her better than that, and she would never need to make such a calculation. She understands relationships and has no need for childish games. In fact, we have been known to share a few laughs when women behave like 2-year-olds and then wonder why their men leave them for their 19 year old masseuse at the club.
Men want hookups, women want relationships. As a result, while women have the power in hookup situations, men have the power in relationships. Many men do not realize it or do not wield it, but that is their problem.
This is why you see men leaving a nightclub with an unattractive woman. It also explains why you see loser men with hot women.
If you are a man, and you have gotten yourself an ugly shrew for a wife, realize that you can replace her in a heartbeat. Life is to short for obnoxious women.
If you are a woman, realize that you will have to settle when it comes time for relationships. It's for the best. You want a man who will take you seriously, rather than one who could be shagging the office receptionist over lunch each day.
I have known thousands of men. Not once have I heard a man complain about falling into a toilet. Now, given that men also sit on toilets, and even do it in the middle of the night when they are groggy, yet don't seem to have this problem of not knowing the state of a seat that they are going to sit naked on, conclude that it is a inferiority complaint.
This argument is spurious at best. First of all, who gets up in the middle of the night, male or female, needing to shit? The only time that will ever happen is if you're sick.
Secondly, women get up more in the middle of the night needing to piss. I have no idea why. My wife gets up to pee nearly every night, and I hardly ever do.
Of course, in my house, we leave the lid shut when the toilet is not in use. One dog and one toddler necessitate that.
I've heard all sorts of excuses. "I was tired", "I just had sex", "It just happens".
Having sex makes you piss on the floor? This is news to me. I was having trouble sleeping, so I nailed my wife. I still couldn't sleep so here I am.
As an experiment, I just tried pissing. I had no difficulty aiming. I even turned the goddamn light on to verify.
Slashdot Mirror
After reading that article, I just totally filled up my Buzzword Bingo card.
Thanks, Roland!
In this case, $300 is almost certainly not reasonable compensation. Statutory damages for even 1 infringement are between $750 and $150,000. How could $300 be any more or less reasonable than $1 when the minimum judgment, assuming the defendant was guilty at all, would be $750? Second, offering $1 is silly because the 'you pay for me' effect only kicks in if the finial judgment is that less then $1 of damage is done. But what does the defendant have to lose by offering? Worst case scenario for the defendant is that plaintiff rejects the offer and is awarded more than $1 in damages. This is the same result as if the defendant had never made the offer to begin with. There appears to be no penalty for the defendant to make a stupid offer of $1.
Think of it like this. Defendant offers plaintiff a $1 judgment. The three possible outcomes for the defendant are:
- Plaintiff accepts. Defendant pays plaintiff $1 and everybody goes home.
- Plaintiff rejects and the case goes to trial. Plaintiff is awarded more than $1. This is the same outcome as if the judgment offer was never made at all.
- Plaintiff rejects and the case goes to trial. Plaintiff is not awarded any judgment. Plaintiff has to pay defendant's legal costs.
My point is, the defendant has nothing to lose and everything to gain.Surely I must be missing something here. What is to stop every North Carolina civil defendant from offering a $1 judgment to the plaintiff? What does the defendant have to lose?
It would seem that the worst case for the defendant is that the plaintiff doesn't accept and then the defendant is no better of worse off than he was before. But for the plaintiff, the stakes are huge.
What did I miss, here?
Huh? This doesn't even make any sense.
First of all, finding out the sex of a fetus is an extremely modern technology.
Secondly, why would parents need access to abortifacients in order to get rid of unwanted females? Infanticide is much easier, and more reliable. Anyone who thinks that infanticide is difficult either physically or emotionally has never had a newborn.
Excluding outliers is valid, as long as you know why you are excluding them. A lot of times a framework is developed to explain a general trend, but not intended to explain every situation.
None of these 10 statements were meant to be universally correct. Wealthy parents more likely to have boys? How does that explain Paris and Nikki Hilton? I doesn't, but that isn't the point.
Regarding the female suicide bombers, perhaps their rationale wasn't sex-related at all? Maybe they lost a family member or loved one in the fighting? Maybe they just really, really believe in the cause?
So what's the use in a theory that doesn't explain the entire situation? Consider this: maybe if young Muslim males had more access to mates, there wouldn't even be a cause. It'd be too hard to find a steady supply of young, impressionable males to kill themselves and abandon their families. That females are willing to join the ranks of the males is irrelevant if the rules of the game are changed fundamentally.
I have familiarity with this, because my wife has an expensive and lifelong pre-existing condition.
The bottom line is, if you've had health coverage for 12 months or more, there is no such thing as a pre-existing condition in the US. An insurer for an individual policy and accept or reject you based on your pre-existing condition, he can charge you a higher rate based on your pre-existing condition, but he cannot accept you but refuse to cover whatever your pre-existing condition is.
Furthermore, if you are joining a group plan (any plan offered by your employer is going to be a group plan) there is also no such thing as a pre-existing condition. The plan must take you, you only pay the group rate, and they must cover your condition, assuming that the plan normally covers that condition.
The above has been the case since 1996. Your experience may vary if it was pre-HIPAA. Some assembly required. Batteries not included. I am not a lawyer.
I'm not sure that you've correctly identified the cause of your suffering.
;)
Obviously I don't know you or your situation, but I have a hard time believing that any hiring manager or admissions officer would blackball you for having a bad year while going through medical problems, and then once the problems were fixed you did great. Hell, my freshman grades were horseshit and that was because I was too drunk and high to do any better. Your excuse sounds a lot better than mine during an interview.
Have you considered that you are suffering because of some other issue in your credentials? How far are you getting in the hiring/admissions process?
Unless you are applying to med school, your story just doesn't compute.
Nothing is required or not required on a resume. You can defecate on a piece of paper and call it your resume. It won't get you any job offers, but the resume police aren't going to pound down your door, either.
For a college resume, it's pretty much expected that recruiters are going to want to know your GPA at one point or another. Frankly, I can't remember if I put my college GPA on my resume or not.
You can always keep your options open. Go through on-campus recruiting and see what happens. If you don't like the result, you can always go back to school.
What work did you do full time? If you were in an IT-related position, definitely don't repeat courses. You'll do fine in your job search based on your experience. If, on the other hand, you worked full time at McDonalds, you can still demonstrate your experience on the open source project.
Experience means more than grades. Many CS grads have poor grades. You will probably be pleasantly surprised when you go through on-campus recruiting.
Somebody better tell that guy about cashier's checks and money orders, pronto!
Just to be clear, when you go to the post office, you are getting a Postal Money Order, not a cashier's check.
That being said, your advice is indeed the most prudent course of action for the original poster.
He knew what the evidence was, and he should have come prepared, especially at the second trial, to refute it.This is an idiotic statement. Salahi lost in small claims court, where no lawyers are allowed. It's just one person vs. another, and a judge who uncovers the truth.
The truth has been uncovered, and justice has been served.
You lost. Then the case was reviewed by another judge, and you lost again.
Sounds to me like you're guilty. You might want to leave Lee Kaplan alone from now on.
Even settling is not great for gateway. It still sends the message that if you have a dispute with gateway, the best way to get action is an SCC filing and skipping out on arbitration.
This would be costly for gateway, because arbitration is cheaper for them than going to court. They want to string this guy up and make him pay dearly for skipping arbitration.
What you are talking about is referred to as a Severability clause, and it is definitely valid and binding.
In general, it is a bad idea to agree to things with your fingers crossed. Judges really hate that, and if you ever have to defend yourself in court, you will face an uphill battle to prove that you acted in good faith. Probably because you were acting in bad faith by indicating your agreement to a contract you had no intention of ever following or even reading.
To gateway, this is about way more than this one case. This is about defending their EULA and binding arbitration requirements.
What gateway really doesn't want is to get socked with tens of thousands of SCC lawsuits. That's why they are wasting resources on this stupid case instead of just giving the poor guy a new machine and a letter of apology for he poor customer service he received.
While it is true that the sales agreement is between you and the retailer, the license agreement is between you and the software maker. The retailer doesn't own the copyright on that software, and as such, may not distribute the software directly. He may only purchase a license to use the software and then sell that license to you, the consumer.
Personally, I dislike EULAs because they are:
- normally impossible to read before purchase
- Non-negotiable, and
- in the real world, nobody reads them
Regarding their enforceability, this has never been proved one way or another. On the one hand, given the reasons I listed above, it seems clear that an EULA is not a meeting of the minds, so how could they be enforceable?But on the other hand, the end user nonetheless indicated his agreement to the EULA by clicking "I Agree", so can we not assume that when a person says, "I Agree" that he, in fact, agrees?
Judges, in my experience, don't typically like to invalidate contracts unless a party acted in bad faith. But who would appear to be acting in bad faith in this situation? The software maker? Or the end user, who said "I Agree" but in fact, did not agree and further had no intention of following or even reading the agreement that he declared his agreement to abide by?
Furthermore, if I did for whatever reason decide to change partners, I would not put the seat down for my new partner, either.
Any more absurt statements? Or are you finished?
Just so you know, the toilet seat argument was long ago settled between us thusly:
Her: Leave the seat down.
Me: Why? You know how to work it.
Her: I could fall in
Me: I could piss on it
Meanwhile, the dog goes and takes a good, long drink out of the toilet bowl.
Her: It seems the seat is the least of our problems. Maybe we had better close the lid.
Me: Ya.
Where do you find these shrewish women?Perhaps my wife has already made that calculation. That I would prefer living alone to being some woman's doormat, and that she'd be better served not acting like a stuck-up cunt.
Of course, I know her better than that, and she would never need to make such a calculation. She understands relationships and has no need for childish games. In fact, we have been known to share a few laughs when women behave like 2-year-olds and then wonder why their men leave them for their 19 year old masseuse at the club.
It turns out this is 180 degrees from the truth.
Men want hookups, women want relationships. As a result, while women have the power in hookup situations, men have the power in relationships. Many men do not realize it or do not wield it, but that is their problem.
This is why you see men leaving a nightclub with an unattractive woman. It also explains why you see loser men with hot women.
If you are a man, and you have gotten yourself an ugly shrew for a wife, realize that you can replace her in a heartbeat. Life is to short for obnoxious women.
If you are a woman, realize that you will have to settle when it comes time for relationships. It's for the best. You want a man who will take you seriously, rather than one who could be shagging the office receptionist over lunch each day.
Secondly, women get up more in the middle of the night needing to piss. I have no idea why. My wife gets up to pee nearly every night, and I hardly ever do.
Of course, in my house, we leave the lid shut when the toilet is not in use. One dog and one toddler necessitate that.Having sex makes you piss on the floor? This is news to me. I was having trouble sleeping, so I nailed my wife. I still couldn't sleep so here I am.
As an experiment, I just tried pissing. I had no difficulty aiming. I even turned the goddamn light on to verify.
Weird.
Uhh.. Exactly what types of intruders are we talking about here?