The best punishment? Sue LexisNexis and Choice Point for libel when they give you a bad credit report.
You can't. From the "Fair" Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681h(e):
Except as provided in sections 1681n and 1681o of this title, no consumer may bring any action or proceeding in the nature of defamation, invasion of privacy, or negligence with respect to the reporting of information against any consumer reporting agency, any user of information, or any person who furnishes information to a consumer reporting agency . . . except as to false information furnished with malice or willful intent to injure such consumer.
You can sue them, say, for failing to reinvestigate a dispute (I have), but you can't sue them for reporting false information unless you can prove malice or willful intent.
This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want/need legal advice, contact an attorney admitted to your jurisdiction's bar. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything in reliance upon it, you are a blithering idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.
DISCLAIMER */
OK, now that that's out of the way . ..
It isn't so much that they deleted the emails, it's that they did so with intent to hide relevant evidence that the other side requested. This deals with discovery abuses committed by Morgan Stanley. Parties to a lawsuit are entitled to information in the possession of the opposing party which is not privileged (e.g., attorney-client, penitent-priest, etc.) and which is relevant to the subject matter of the litigation or is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. This duty of disclosure "includ[es] the existence, description, nature, custody, condition, and location of any books, documents, or other tangible things and the identity and location of persons having knowledge of any discoverable matter." See Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 26. "Documents" include emails.
A litigant who withholds discoverable information is subject to sanctions under FRCP 37. This is apparently what happened here. The judge, having grown weary of Morgan Stanley's lack of forthhcoming with discovery, probably ruled that the issue of fraud was admitted. Normally, a fraud plaintiff must prove that a defendant made a statement (1) that was materially false, (2) that the plaintiff justifiably relied upon, and (3) that he suffered damage as a result. As a result of the discovery violations, the judge established (1), leaving Perelman to prove only (2) and (3). In essence, all the jury had to do was decide how much Morgan Stanley had to pay.
Now, there will be an appeal and the award may be reduced, but courts take a dim view of discovery games, so they may not be as inclined to let Morgan Stanley off the hook. This is especially true in light of the fact that punitive damages were only double actuals.
Because (1) it offered a gig or so of storage space, (2) wasn't Microsoft, (3) it was Google, and (4) it invades your privacy by targeting ads based on emails you send/receive.
I was just trying to illustrate just how far behind AOL is and remains. People will get their free AOL mail account because they're stupid sheep and will flock to the AOL brand. Incidentally, that's what made AOL so popular in the first place: It allowed idiots who had no business on the Internet to get there.
"Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
Wrong. This is to prevent asshead state legislatures from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
Before you scream "xenophobe" and mod me troll, this is an issue that's near and dear to the heart of many/.'ers. Importing cheap foreign workers has become the stuff of legends in the tech industry, especially so now that His Billness has called for the abolition of H1-B visa caps. Other industries have been doing this illegally for years (Wal-Mart anyone?) It's to the point where many unscrupulous contractors use "Manuel labor" i.e., cheap, non-union, and forcing out skilled union labor. Besides, California is about to go bankrupt from the cost of uncompensated care and bennies for illegals.
A hundred bucks says that if he's spent this much time on his network, he hasn't spent nearly enough time with his kids. Dude, if you didn't want to raise them, why didn't you just save us the trouble of having to and get fixed already?
pronto. Until it does, it's going to continue to have these problems of being under pressure from Sony Music (a member of the Recording Industry Ass. of America) to not innovate.
Unfortunately, it seems like Apple tends to go for this market segment a lot. I'm far from an Apple basher as I'm typing this message on one, but c'mon Apple. You can do better than selling this grossly overpriced crap.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Activator doesn't work, how come so many people say that it does?
It's very simple, really. Placebo effect and confirmation bias. These things drive all manner of quackery (naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc.) and other pseudoscience. Confirmation bias is particularly powerful here as people don't want to admit they're stupid enough to have been duped into buying an overpriced sticker, even though they are.
Babs got slapped back under California's anti-SLAPP statute. After losing her $50 million lawsuit, she had to fork over north of a hundred large for attorney's fees after some guy had the temerity to post an aerial photograph of her palatial mansion that would make Ken Lay jealous. Her attorney's name - I'm not making this up - was John Gatti.
companies who save far more lives being greedy than they would without.
Given (1) that the rich get their expensive drug cocktails while poor people die because they can't afford them, and (2) the pharmecutical industry's history of releasing unsafe drugs onto the market, I'd say they probably take as many or more lives than they save.
Without a ruling, there is no precedent to stop companies in the future trying this same sort of crap. It has to go to trial and a verdict has to be issued to stop this from happening again and wasting more of the court's time.
Even with a finding by a jury, there is still no precedent. And there already is a means to stop this crap: Rule 11.
A patent is just property, and the fact it is granted under federal law shouldn't really matter. (I could be wrong about this). The big fight would be just compensation - all the drug company gets from their patent is profit - so if they are "justly compensated" then they really have nothing to complain about. Except of course "just compensation" under eminent domain jurisprudence is anything but just.
You are right, a patent is just property. It's a government-sanctioned monopoly for a fixed period of time. Governments have taken non-real property for public use many times before. Most notably, the government nationalized the railroads during WWII.
There's precedent for this as several other countries have nationalized drug patents or threatened to do so. One thing's for sure, though: Were this actually done, it would blow open the entire pharmecutical company machine. It would expose for all the world to see the lies about R&D costs, etc. In other words, "just compensation" would be what it actually cost you to make the thing and sell it at a reasonable price, not the trillions of dollars you make from selling it at your ridiculously inflated prices. It would also expose the rampant abuse of the patent system for which OxyContin is Exhibit "A".
Obviously not posted by a business owner of any sort. 4% loss may sound paltry, but if you choose to look at that 4% as being taken out of your net profit it'll look considerable larger . . .
Cry me a river.
I think what a lot of people, particularly large corporations have forgotten, is that business involves (drum roll please) RISK! There's the potential for huge rewards, yes, but there's also the potential, i.e., much greater likelihood, of losing the shirt right off your back. A business owner doesn't have a right to a profit at all, much less a certain level of profit. In fact, the odds are at least four to one against making any profit! In other words, if you're in a business you can't make money in, then you're gonna have to get a job at Wal-Mart like the rest of us.
Further, "Hollywood accounting" is synonymous with cooking the books, so I'd take any money numbers from these people cum grano salis.
Whether or not he actually invented the thing. I didn't RTFA, but I know there are companies whose business model is to patent shit that hasn't been invented yet. Then, when someone invents it, they walk in and say, "hand it over."
Well, no doubt HP, AT&T and Lucent have had their problems, but I'm not sure that it can all be pinned on her.
In a way, you've made my point for me. What did we hear during the boom? "The VISIONARY STEWARDSHIP of [grossly overpaid corporate PHB] has gotten us here! WHATEVER would we do without him?!?" You never hear, "well, the economy is so hot right now that anybody who can spell HTML can start/run a company that makes money. In fact, it's so hot, you'd have to try to fuck it up, and it might just do well in spite of you."
But when things go in the crapper, it's always "well, the economy is hard, it's a tough market." You never hear that the grossly overpaid corporate PHB is in fact a jackass who got there not on merit, but because of who Daddy was. The guys (and chicks, in the case of Fiorina) get paid the obscene - not just big - bucks for a reason. And frankly, Fiorina's claim that "it wasn't my fault" rings just as hollow as Ken Lay's claim that he didn't know what was going on. If you're that out of the loop, then why isn't your time free? Wait, I forgot, it is: You're out golfing ^W fostering business relationships all day.
I think the more advanced degrees are the ones pertinent to her career at HP, AT&T and Lucent.
Well, considering her (non) stewardship of those companies, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Lessee here . . . HPQ is a mess after the acquisition, T is about to be purchased, and LU is a shadow of its former self. The latter's most recent claim to fame is that, under her watch, it paid the second largest securities fraud settlement in history.
We mere mortals who fuck up that badly get fired and blackballed from the industry, or in the case of lawyers, end up in the sports section. Not to worry, though: Fiorina will find another company willing to let her run it into the ground, that is, if HPQ doesn't keep her on as a "consultant" for the low, low price of, oh, twenty grand a month or so.
Personally, I think the only reason they hired her is because she's a chick and they wanted to appear "progressive" and "diverse." Well, she did what every woman does when she's depressed, she went shopping. What do the call it, "retail therapy"? Except that here, retail therapy is costing many thousands of people their livelihoods. Looks like William Hewlett was right in opposing the merger.
Security is a priority for Firefox. For M$, it isn't. The Firefox folks won't deliberately leave obvious unpatched security holes the way His Billness does.
I thought Apple was a paragon of virtue who could do no wrong and that evil such as this is only perpetrated by Microsoft? Oh, I forgot -/.'ers used to think that evil such as this could only be perpetrated by IBM and that Microsoft was the paragon of virtue.
And as for outsourcing, I've never heard anyone except the CEO of an outsourcing firm speak out on how great their product is. Yes, there are many steller Indian engineers out there; the trouble is, most live in America. Outsourcing is a fad. The following will become evident to execs very soon: 1) Mutual intelligability is important, and 2) the benefits of a tight-knit dev team outweigh the bottom-line gains of outsourcing.
Wishful thinking. First off, the same thing was said when all the manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas. "Them jobs'll come back when they figger out we can make cars more gooder than them gooks can!" They didn't, and they're not. Besides, execs don't think that far ahead. They think in terms of what Wall Street wants, and Wall Street views outsourcing as the way to go.
Face it: Outsourcing is here to stay. Anything that can be outsourced (and there are few things that can't) will be outsourced. The business model of the 21st century is to pay third-world wages but charge first-world prices.
Slashdot Mirror
You can't. From the "Fair" Credit Reporting Act, 15 USC 1681h(e):
You can sue them, say, for failing to reinvestigate a dispute (I have), but you can't sue them for reporting false information unless you can prove malice or willful intent.
/* DISCLAIMER
.
This is not legal advice. You are not a client. I'm not even an attorney. If you want/need legal advice, contact an attorney admitted to your jurisdiction's bar. What I am saying here is probably 100% wrong and if you do anything in reliance upon it, you are a blithering idiot who deserves whatever bad shit is very likely to befall you.
DISCLAIMER */
OK, now that that's out of the way . .
It isn't so much that they deleted the emails, it's that they did so with intent to hide relevant evidence that the other side requested. This deals with discovery abuses committed by Morgan Stanley. Parties to a lawsuit are entitled to information in the possession of the opposing party which is not privileged (e.g., attorney-client, penitent-priest, etc.) and which is relevant to the subject matter of the litigation or is reasonably calculated to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. This duty of disclosure "includ[es] the existence, description, nature, custody, condition, and location of any books, documents, or other tangible things and the identity and location of persons having knowledge of any discoverable matter." See Federal Rule of Civil Procedure (FRCP) 26. "Documents" include emails.
A litigant who withholds discoverable information is subject to sanctions under FRCP 37. This is apparently what happened here. The judge, having grown weary of Morgan Stanley's lack of forthhcoming with discovery, probably ruled that the issue of fraud was admitted. Normally, a fraud plaintiff must prove that a defendant made a statement (1) that was materially false, (2) that the plaintiff justifiably relied upon, and (3) that he suffered damage as a result. As a result of the discovery violations, the judge established (1), leaving Perelman to prove only (2) and (3). In essence, all the jury had to do was decide how much Morgan Stanley had to pay.
Now, there will be an appeal and the award may be reduced, but courts take a dim view of discovery games, so they may not be as inclined to let Morgan Stanley off the hook. This is especially true in light of the fact that punitive damages were only double actuals.
IAAL.
I've read through the replies to this question, and there's an unnecessary morass of complexity.
The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Rule 803
I think you mean to refer to the Federal Rules of Evidence there, counselor.
Because (1) it offered a gig or so of storage space, (2) wasn't Microsoft, (3) it was Google, and (4) it invades your privacy by targeting ads based on emails you send/receive.
I was just trying to illustrate just how far behind AOL is and remains. People will get their free AOL mail account because they're stupid sheep and will flock to the AOL brand. Incidentally, that's what made AOL so popular in the first place: It allowed idiots who had no business on the Internet to get there.
But free web-based email services were cool about, oh, about seven years ago.
"Starting three years from now, if you live or work in the United States, you'll need a federally approved ID card to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments, or take advantage of nearly any government service.
/.'ers. Importing cheap foreign workers has become the stuff of legends in the tech industry, especially so now that His Billness has called for the abolition of H1-B visa caps. Other industries have been doing this illegally for years (Wal-Mart anyone?) It's to the point where many unscrupulous contractors use "Manuel labor" i.e., cheap, non-union, and forcing out skilled union labor. Besides, California is about to go bankrupt from the cost of uncompensated care and bennies for illegals.
Wrong. This is to prevent asshead state legislatures from issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants.
Before you scream "xenophobe" and mod me troll, this is an issue that's near and dear to the heart of many
A hundred bucks says that if he's spent this much time on his network, he hasn't spent nearly enough time with his kids. Dude, if you didn't want to raise them, why didn't you just save us the trouble of having to and get fixed already?
pronto. Until it does, it's going to continue to have these problems of being under pressure from Sony Music (a member of the Recording Industry Ass. of America) to not innovate.
Unfortunately, it seems like Apple tends to go for this market segment a lot. I'm far from an Apple basher as I'm typing this message on one, but c'mon Apple. You can do better than selling this grossly overpriced crap.
I claim a patent on dihydrogen monoxide! And ya know what? The USPTO would probably grant it.
That's probably what it is, with a little glitter added.
Assuming, for the sake of argument, that the Activator doesn't work, how come so many people say that it does?
It's very simple, really. Placebo effect and confirmation bias. These things drive all manner of quackery (naturopathy, chiropractic, acupuncture, etc.) and other pseudoscience. Confirmation bias is particularly powerful here as people don't want to admit they're stupid enough to have been duped into buying an overpriced sticker, even though they are.
You beat me to it! Damn you! :)
Babs got slapped back under California's anti-SLAPP statute. After losing her $50 million lawsuit, she had to fork over north of a hundred large for attorney's fees after some guy had the temerity to post an aerial photograph of her palatial mansion that would make Ken Lay jealous. Her attorney's name - I'm not making this up - was John Gatti.
companies who save far more lives being greedy than they would without.
Given (1) that the rich get their expensive drug cocktails while poor people die because they can't afford them, and (2) the pharmecutical industry's history of releasing unsafe drugs onto the market, I'd say they probably take as many or more lives than they save.
Without a ruling, there is no precedent to stop companies in the future trying this same sort of crap. It has to go to trial and a verdict has to be issued to stop this from happening again and wasting more of the court's time.
Even with a finding by a jury, there is still no precedent. And there already is a means to stop this crap: Rule 11.
A patent is just property, and the fact it is granted under federal law shouldn't really matter. (I could be wrong about this). The big fight would be just compensation - all the drug company gets from their patent is profit - so if they are "justly compensated" then they really have nothing to complain about. Except of course "just compensation" under eminent domain jurisprudence is anything but just.
You are right, a patent is just property. It's a government-sanctioned monopoly for a fixed period of time. Governments have taken non-real property for public use many times before. Most notably, the government nationalized the railroads during WWII.
There's precedent for this as several other countries have nationalized drug patents or threatened to do so. One thing's for sure, though: Were this actually done, it would blow open the entire pharmecutical company machine. It would expose for all the world to see the lies about R&D costs, etc. In other words, "just compensation" would be what it actually cost you to make the thing and sell it at a reasonable price, not the trillions of dollars you make from selling it at your ridiculously inflated prices. It would also expose the rampant abuse of the patent system for which OxyContin is Exhibit "A".
Obviously not posted by a business owner of any sort. 4% loss may sound paltry, but if you choose to look at that 4% as being taken out of your net profit it'll look considerable larger . . .
Cry me a river.
I think what a lot of people, particularly large corporations have forgotten, is that business involves (drum roll please) RISK! There's the potential for huge rewards, yes, but there's also the potential, i.e., much greater likelihood, of losing the shirt right off your back. A business owner doesn't have a right to a profit at all, much less a certain level of profit. In fact, the odds are at least four to one against making any profit! In other words, if you're in a business you can't make money in, then you're gonna have to get a job at Wal-Mart like the rest of us.
Further, "Hollywood accounting" is synonymous with cooking the books, so I'd take any money numbers from these people cum grano salis.
Whether or not he actually invented the thing. I didn't RTFA, but I know there are companies whose business model is to patent shit that hasn't been invented yet. Then, when someone invents it, they walk in and say, "hand it over."
Quoth the poster:
Well, no doubt HP, AT&T and Lucent have had their problems, but I'm not sure that it can all be pinned on her.
In a way, you've made my point for me. What did we hear during the boom? "The VISIONARY STEWARDSHIP of [grossly overpaid corporate PHB] has gotten us here! WHATEVER would we do without him?!?" You never hear, "well, the economy is so hot right now that anybody who can spell HTML can start/run a company that makes money. In fact, it's so hot, you'd have to try to fuck it up, and it might just do well in spite of you."
But when things go in the crapper, it's always "well, the economy is hard, it's a tough market." You never hear that the grossly overpaid corporate PHB is in fact a jackass who got there not on merit, but because of who Daddy was. The guys (and chicks, in the case of Fiorina) get paid the obscene - not just big - bucks for a reason. And frankly, Fiorina's claim that "it wasn't my fault" rings just as hollow as Ken Lay's claim that he didn't know what was going on. If you're that out of the loop, then why isn't your time free? Wait, I forgot, it is: You're out golfing ^W fostering business relationships all day.
I think the more advanced degrees are the ones pertinent to her career at HP, AT&T and Lucent.
Well, considering her (non) stewardship of those companies, that's not exactly a ringing endorsement. Lessee here . . . HPQ is a mess after the acquisition, T is about to be purchased, and LU is a shadow of its former self. The latter's most recent claim to fame is that, under her watch, it paid the second largest securities fraud settlement in history.
We mere mortals who fuck up that badly get fired and blackballed from the industry, or in the case of lawyers, end up in the sports section. Not to worry, though: Fiorina will find another company willing to let her run it into the ground, that is, if HPQ doesn't keep her on as a "consultant" for the low, low price of, oh, twenty grand a month or so.
Personally, I think the only reason they hired her is because she's a chick and they wanted to appear "progressive" and "diverse." Well, she did what every woman does when she's depressed, she went shopping. What do the call it, "retail therapy"? Except that here, retail therapy is costing many thousands of people their livelihoods. Looks like William Hewlett was right in opposing the merger.
Security is a priority for Firefox. For M$, it isn't. The Firefox folks won't deliberately leave obvious unpatched security holes the way His Billness does.
And I didnt know that you were required to get a raise.
Well, seeing as how the CEO gets a 40% raise even when the company loses money . . .
I thought Apple was a paragon of virtue who could do no wrong and that evil such as this is only perpetrated by Microsoft? Oh, I forgot - /.'ers used to think that evil such as this could only be perpetrated by IBM and that Microsoft was the paragon of virtue.
How short their memories are . . .
Salaries are only increasing 0.5%, which means they aren't even keeping up with inflation.
In other words, IT salaries are actually dropping in that they're not keeping up with the ever-increasing cost of living.
In other words, start typing your resume and get ready to train your Indian replacement hired under the pretext of a "labor shortage."
And as for outsourcing, I've never heard anyone except the CEO of an outsourcing firm speak out on how great their product is. Yes, there are many steller Indian engineers out there; the trouble is, most live in America. Outsourcing is a fad. The following will become evident to execs very soon: 1) Mutual intelligability is important, and 2) the benefits of a tight-knit dev team outweigh the bottom-line gains of outsourcing.
Wishful thinking. First off, the same thing was said when all the manufacturing jobs were shipped overseas. "Them jobs'll come back when they figger out we can make cars more gooder than them gooks can!" They didn't, and they're not. Besides, execs don't think that far ahead. They think in terms of what Wall Street wants, and Wall Street views outsourcing as the way to go.
Face it: Outsourcing is here to stay. Anything that can be outsourced (and there are few things that can't) will be outsourced. The business model of the 21st century is to pay third-world wages but charge first-world prices.