Law Prof Characterizes Yahoo Suit as Extortion 90
netbuzz writes "Fair comment or libel? A law prof/blogger calls those behind the class-action suit against Yahoo 'extortionists.' The targeted lawyers, who include spyware/adware expert Ben Edelman, are not amused." From the article: "Goldman, who according to his blog 'holds leadership positions in the American Bar Association and the Computer Law Association,' addresses the merits of the suit in a generally academic fashion before winding up for the big finish: 'I think these lawsuits are nothing more than a shakedown for cash,' he concludes. 'Even unmeritorious class action lawsuits are expensive to defend, so the plaintiffs' lawyers can exploit those defense costs for their personal largesse. They can make this argument to defendants: settle with me for a fraction of your total expected defense costs, and we're both better off (defendants save some defense costs, plaintiffs' lawyers grab some personal loot).'"
*FORMER* lawyer, please (Score:1, Funny)
Whoever modded this funny (Score:2)
Re:Whoever modded this funny (Score:1)
p.s. Disbarments are wholly unrelated to the article.
p.p.s. Bar associations do not backdate disbarments.
That ain't no joke (Score:2)
Furthermore, if this professor truely believes that this is extortion, he needs to report the lawyers to the appropriate legal authorities. Rule 8.3 states that a lawyer who k
Re:That ain't no joke (Score:2)
Yahoo! is run by yahoos? (Score:4, Informative)
The feed is then accepted.
We also manage keyword buys. We'll submit a list of keywords, for example, "baby jump suits" -- to have it rejected (without notifying us -- we have to discover it after-the-fact). The word that actually goes in is "baby jump suit". The next time we submit, "baby jump suits" goes in... Clearly subjective, depending on which hack approved the submission.
One can deduce that their approval process is manual. That means they probably have a bunch of $10/hr. hacks doing the grunt work. It's inconsistant.
I digress...
My point is that if you have people instead of systems, algorithms, and/or applications to do the tedious work, you have:
I don't think Yahoo! the corporate entity is aware of these goings-on. But given the clear inconsistancies that make Yahoo! difficult to work with, I think they're accountable nonetheless.
At the same time, if someone on a boat isn't helping keep it affloat, you don't sink the boat. So, in spite of Yahoo! needing to be slapped -- I'd rather see them slapped with a dose of "hey your products suck" than a bunch of lawsuits by money-grubbing lawyers.
Re:Yahoo! is run by yahoos? (Score:2)
Re:Yahoo! is run by yahoos? (Score:2)
There you go. Hack. If your grasp on the english language was as good as your grasp on weak attacks, you would have noticed the difference between "disinterested" (an adjective) and "disinterest" (a noun). At least parse the correct word. That aside, "disinterested" still works since "indifference" was the context.
For the hackish little text parser that you are, did you catch any misspellings?
Seriously, if you're going to stoop to parsing my grammar, don't leave
Re:Yahoo! is run by yahoos? (Score:1)
yahoos (Score:1, Offtopic)
The Horror (Score:4, Interesting)
Class-action fix (Score:5, Insightful)
Counsel for the plaintiffs in a class-action suit may not receive any more than is actually distributed to the plaintiffs.
That's the classic scam: the defendents settle for $100 million, the plaintiffs' law firm get $95 million of it, $5 million is offered to the plaintiff class if they respond to request 20 pages of paperwork to apply for their $0.75 payout; a total of $120 thousand is actually distributed to the plaintiff class members and "their" lawyers pocket the balance.
Suggest it to your Congresscritters. The ABA and Trial Lawyers' Association will hate it, but if it ever sees daylight nobody will dare vote against it because (unlike a lot of tort reform) it doesn't take a dime from plaintiffs -- the ones they ABA and TLA use to justify their normal way of doing business.
Re:Class-action fix (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Class-action fix (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Class-action fix (Score:1)
Re:Class-action fix (Score:2)
Good idea! (Score:2, Insightful)
My only question is
Re:Good idea! (Score:2)
Re:Class-action fix (Score:2, Informative)
http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/d
Re:Class-action fix (Score:1)
If I recall, this is precisely what happened in the case of Strawargument v. UrbanLegend. Or to be more blunt, I think your engaging in ridiculous hyperbol
Re:Class-action fix (Score:2)
Re:Class-action fix (Score:2)
The point being to put a stop to cases where the lawyers are the only ones who get paid.
Re:doesn't take a dime from plaintiffs (Score:1)
The "doesn't take a dime from plaintiffs" fact would be lost in the FUD. Everyone would have a vague sense of how a few bad, mean, greedy people were trying to "create roadblocks," "slash the quality of legal representation" and generally "make it harder" for them should they ever need to join forces with other victims of big,
Re:Class-action fix (Score:1)
The (human) food chain (was:The Horror) (Score:2)
Been there, done that... (Score:2)
Charles Dickens wrote a book that's arguably a gigantic illustration of that point: people fight, but the lawyers always win. (I'm talking about Bleak House here, and for those who haven't read it, it's basically about a probate dispute over a large estate that drives a family apart; the punchline is at the end when one guy wins, he does so only to have the entire estate seized and sold off to pay the lawyers and court fees.)
Re:The Horror (Score:1)
Re:The Horror (Score:2)
So, put a limit on the lawyering. We can even make it voluntary, to wit: there can be two levels of suit.
Simple Level: State the facts during your filing and let judge/jury decide case. No motions, changes of venue, retractions, or any of that crap. File it (note: the side that fails to file automatically loses) and wait. You barely see a judge/jury, it happens so fast; all the time taken is behind the scenes with clerks shu
Re:The Horror (Score:1)
Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Lawyers suck the life out of everything (Score:1, Flamebait)
Re:Shrill Criticism (Score:2)
I think your own "Aw Shucks" G Dubya-syle thinking could have a devastating effect.
Re:Shrill Criticism (Score:3, Informative)
Also, here [findlaw.com] is a link to an article discussing a Supreme Court desision pretty much on point where Justice Scalia calls it extortion.
Justice (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Justice (Score:2)
Which is not nothing. Ponder Rwanda or Zimbabwe as examples of what happens when you lose the approximation of justice the US has.
Be careful what you blog (Score:2)
"The legal issue would likely be whether the statements were actual imputations of a crime, or were 'rhetorical hyperbole,' essentially a statement of opinion, not of fact. The former could be considered libelous, while the latter could not."
Of course, being it's in a blog, the author, Eric Goldman, wiil no doubt stand up in court and claim it's just his opinion, no matter how vehement the statements were. This should prove a cautionary tale: just because you blog does not necessarily mean you can say
He has phrased it as an opinion (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:He has phrased it as an opinion (Score:2)
Re:He has phrased it as an opinion (Score:2)
Re:He has phrased it as an opinion (Score:2)
Re:He has phrased it as an opinion (Score:2)
I think there is a grey area in the law when stating an "opinion" on something that is really either true or not and not just a matter of personal view. I didn't RTFA and don't mean to imply that this applies here, but thought is was worth
Re:He has phrased it as an opinion (Score:2)
If I were to state, "I think Bourbon Man likes to fondle little boys", I could probably still get in some trouble.
That is actually covered in the law surrounding libel. Firstly, it is divided into two classes. If a statement is made as fact, the statements being true is an adequate defense. Adequate reason to believe it true may suffice.
If a statement is an opinion, the standard is simply that a reasonable person knowing what you know might hold that same opinion.
Value judgements fall into the opin
Re:Be careful what you blog (Score:1)
Why not? There's no obligation that you believe what you read. No sir, the responsibility lies with how you react. Action has consequences. Speech is just that, speech.
Re:Be careful what you blog (Score:2)
And if your speech is yelling "Fire!" in a crowded movie theatre, or calling someone "monkey butt" on TV, you can bet your speech will be met with a citation in the former case and a slander suit in the latter. Just because we have the right to say what we want in the US, does not mean that all speech is in fact allowable or even desired, and there are standards.
Re:Be careful what you blog (Score:2)
Re:Be careful what you blog (Score:1)
Wearing shirts that speak out against a popular (unpopular?) war : http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.c gi/48/17374 [truthout.org]
http://www.albany.edu/~mg2300/doc/news/TU_Marchers -protest-arrest-of-man-for-wearing-peace-Tshirt-at -Crossgates_03-05-2003.html [albany.edu]
The issue about free speech is that (in my opinion) it only REALLY counts when someone's view is unpopular. Yes, yelling fire in a crowded movie theater is illegal. Why? Because people can be trampled to death by the stampede. Somehow I don
Re:Be careful what you blog (Score:1)
Wii (Score:1)
What is that? Sublimimal advertisement?
Yesterday's Libel As Today's Hyperbole (Score:2)
The legal issue would likely be whether the statements were actual imputations of a crime, or were 'rhetorical hyperbole,' essentially a statement of opinion, not of fact. The former could be considered libelous, while the latter could not.
Of course, hyperbole is the eye of the beholder
In my opinion, today's average juror would look at Prof. Goldman's
link to the blog post in question (Score:3, Informative)
Technology & Marketing Law Blog [ericgoldman.org]
Why? (Score:2)
Assuming for a second that the quoted individual isn't full of it, why are any unmeritorious lawsuits expensive to defend? Don't courts do things like order one party to pay the other's legal fees in cases like that?
Re:Why? (Score:5, Informative)
The main reason is that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure #10 is basically a dead letter.
Re:Why? (Score:2, Insightful)
If the case is truly frivilous, it will cost as much to prosecute as to defend, so there is no way to "extort" money. Moreover, a billion-dollar company can afford to pay $20K to get a case dismissed. A lawyer so desperate for work that
Loser pays should be the way (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I am aware there are problems with this also (loser can't pay, etc). But it is definately a start.
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:2)
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:1)
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:2)
I'd limit it to his own attorney costs to avoid people engaging frivolent huge lawyer armies.
E.g.
- I engage one 50k lawyer
- the other engages a team of 10 100k lawyers
- I loose
- I pay 50k for my lawyer and 50k for the other lawyers
- the other 950k are paid by the other team
This way, everybody (whos confident to win) can afford a legal defense as good as the guy sueing him. If you want a better defense, you have to pay it yourself.
Still needs some rules to consider variable costs (e.g. an attorney t
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:2)
That's WAAAY too complicated. Sounds like somethng a lawyer would dream up ...
Shakespeare said it best:
Here's a bunch more lawyer quotes http://www.power-of-attorneys.com/funny_lawyer_jok es.asp?type_ID=2&page=1 [power-of-attorneys.com]
If lawyers have such a bad reputation, its because they are not willing to clean up the act of those around them. Bar associations are, by and large, a joke. Sanctions? More like "Sue me!" A better plan w
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:2)
The problem now is that the same advantage exists, it is just reserved for the richer part
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:2)
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:1)
This would literally give large corporations the ability to drive smaller businesses and individuals into the poorhouse. They could exploit tiny loopholes in the law to "win" a case that right now would carry no financial gain. But under your system, they just tack on 100-200 lawyers and legal aides (not uncommon) to their side of the case and voila, the small guy who just lost a silly case has to pay a large corporation millions of dollars. Companies cou
Re:Loser pays should be the way (Score:1)
I'd pay 99c to download THAT!
TWW
Classic error (Score:1)
and the courts waste time on this bullshit? (Score:1)
Lawyers in Neverland (Score:2)
This is otherwise known as the Michael Jackson defense.
democracy cleptocracy (Score:1)
"Fair comment or libel?" (Score:2, Informative)
I think in order to be libellous, it has to be untrue.
He's got a point (Score:2)
"They can make this argument to defendants: settle with me for a fraction of your total expected defense costs, and we're both better off (defendants save some defense costs, plaintiffs' lawyers grab some personal loot).'"
Largesse? (Score:2, Funny)
That sentence doesn't make sense. What do you think is meant by "for their personal largesse"? Largesse doesn't make sense here. The plaintiff's lawyers can exploit those defense costs for their personal generosity? More likely, the writer meant "personal benefit".
Writing is like code that runs in your readers' heads. This code is buggy.