Re:What about extortion? (Score 1)

And here's another example, http://www.taubmansucks.com/, this guy was sued over a trademark issue by someone who had no case. A year later he finally won, and got the costs of engaging a lawyer back.

Well, actually, I had a free lawyer, Paul Levy of Public Citizen. The costs I recovered were what I think are called "court costs" - filing fees, copying expenses, and so on. I did not recover other costs, such as the money I had to pay to fly Paul to various hearings. At one point, I bought Paul a cheap (non-refundable) ticket to fly to Detroit to depose some witnesses - but at the last second, Taubman canceled the meeting. Paul asked Taubman's attorney, Doug Sprinkle, to refund the cost of the tickets, since they were non-refundable and Doug had canceled a scheduled meeting to which we had both agreed. Doug's reply: "Perhaps in the future you should purchase full-fare tickets which permit greater flexibility when traveling." I assume that this was Doug's subtle way of rubbing our faces in the fact that we were strapped for cash (and were not going to get our expenses paid even if we won), while his client had virtually unlimited resources. (On the other hand, we eventually won the case, which I suspect was even more satisfying than getting nasty little digs in from time to time.)

What I don't understand is why I would have had to pay Taubman's legal costs if they won, but they didn't have to pay mine when they lost. It really doesn't seem very fair.