Man Sued For $30K Over $40 Craigslist Printer

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All I can say about this crazy case is that justice was finally served in the end. Too bad it took six and a half years and twelve thousand dollars to "win" a case that started over a $40 Craigslist printer. :(

Selling a used, black-and-white printer through Craigslist seemed simple and straightforward to Doug Costello. It wasn't. What the 66-year-old Massachusetts man didn't know then is that he would spend the next 6 ½ years embroiled in a complicated and confusing legal dispute in Indiana over that printer, which, according to its buyer, was broken. He would find himself liable for about $30,000 in damages. He would pay a lawyer at least $12,000 in his battle to escape the legal mess. And it all started with a piece of hardware he sold online for about $40 in 2009. With shipping and other costs, the total was less than $75, according to court records.
 
cyclone3d said:
And this is just one more example of why we need a loser plaintiff pays all (lawyer and court costs) system for frivolous lawsuits such as this.
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Extremely gray area there, and the government HATES having to make decisions about gray area.
 
cyclone3d said:
And this is just one more example of why we need a loser plaintiff pays all (lawyer and court costs) system for frivolous lawsuits such as this.
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Well, that can be a REALLY bad, as then the process of suing people becomes even MORE high-risk, high-reward, as multibillion-dollar corps can just start suing any random person and expect ALL of their legal fees paid in the highly likely instance that they win. Lawsuits then become an even more lucrative source of income than they already are.
 
cyclone3d said:
And this is just one more example of why we need a loser plaintiff pays all (lawyer and court costs) system for frivolous lawsuits such as this.
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Completely agree.
ANY civil case should be considered such. If the plaintiff loses, they should pay the defandant's attorneys, at the least.
 
KazeoHin said:
Well, that can be a REALLY bad, as then the process of suing people becomes even MORE high-risk, high-reward, as multibillion-dollar corps can just start suing any random person and expect ALL of their legal fees paid in the highly likely instance that they win. Lawsuits then become an even more lucrative source of income than they already are.
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No, you have it wrong.
The plaintiff is bringing the suit, all they can gain is a win.

In your case, the corporation can bring any suit they wish, but if the defense holds; the corporation is out the money.
 
It should also be noted that "sueing" is the preferred method of solving a dispute in this country. We consider ourselves a nation of laws, and by sueing, you not only allow those laws to be applied, but it also means there is legal acknowledgement of whatever the outcome is.

Unfortunately, that's not what it seems to be used for much of the time.
 
I think there should be a law stopping people like these two men in the story. If you repeatedly sue people for large sums of money with no basis I think after about the 4th case that you should be fined for wasting the court's time and be tossed into a cell for a few days every time you file another case like that.
 
My company has a gentlemen who is in his late 50's that has decided he wants to be an attorney suing us basically non-stop (for experience, and just to feed the political trolls he is foreign with no formal education). Nothing we can do but pay extremely high attorney fees to have the cases thrown out one after another. I brought up the idea of a counter-suit and our attorney told us that we would be in court for many years and end up tripling his fees to do so. So we are already $10k in on this one fantastic human being.

Although it works often, some aspects of the system are completely broken.

cyclone3d said:
And this is just one more example of why we need a loser plaintiff pays all (lawyer and court costs) system for frivolous lawsuits such as this.
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Would fix our entire problem.
 
cyclone3d said:
And this is just one more example of why we need a loser plaintiff pays all (lawyer and court costs) system for frivolous lawsuits such as this.
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It's pretty much left up to a judge's discretion in the US outside of a few corner cases in which there is no judicial discretion.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
There's a special place in hell for people like this. Seriously - six and a half years over MOTHERFUCKING PRINTER?!
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If you read the article it wasn't 6.5 years straight. Kept getting tossed out and the guy kept bring it back up, it would get tossed out then a few years later brought back....
 
Is that a thief or a lawyer they hired...I can't tell the difference $40 printer lol the judge probably got paid more than that thanks to tax payers and a flat out broken judicial system.
 
Exavior said:
If you read the article it wasn't 6.5 years straight. Kept getting tossed out and the guy kept bring it back up, it would get tossed out then a few years later brought back....
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I read the article. Must have missed that part. But still...
 
The smug bastard even took a picture of himself as if he's proud of this.
 
jbltecnicspro said:
The asshole represented himself in this story. But I agree with this.
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Ah, didn't read it, but I'm glad that lawyers apparently haven't yet sank that low.... uh... in this instance anyway.

I'm sure he is proud, probably been waiting for his 15 minutes of fame the article like this got him.
 
pothb said:
Ah, didn't read it, but I'm glad that lawyers apparently haven't yet sank that low.... uh... in this instance anyway.

I'm sure he is proud, probably been waiting for his 15 minutes of fame the article like this got him.
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Lawyers pretty much never sink this low for a reason... Lawyers that do smaller lawsuits are in the business to make as much money as possible doing as little work as possible. So this means that they avoid losing cases like the plague as those can be a lot of work for no money at all. Instead they take cases that are clearly worth money and then generally try to get the plaintiff to settle for less than they could get as quickly as possible so that they can stop working and can collect their $$$.
 
Oh, I know that. But some of them see potential in weird ways from stupid cases.... I mean, it can take forever for someone to get disbarred.
 
In this kind of cases the court should be able to just straight up throw the people who constantly sue people with no legal basis in jail for wasting so much time and money on something that means nothing and fine them for every amount of money it cost for the courts time/judges/lawyers, etc.
 
"Finally, in March 2015 — six years after Costello sold the printer — Special Judge J. Jeffrey Edens issued a ruling. He awarded Zavodnik a judgment of $30,044.07 for breach of contract."

This is the most outrageous part. It's no wonder shit bags try to shake people down.
 
I don't really have violent tendency but after 6 years of that shit, I'd be surprised if the other guy still breathed. Seriously. At least the judgement of 30k was taken back.
 
Well if I'm out 12k in legal fee's, whats another 1k to pay some crackhead to beat the shit out of him with an aluminium baseball bat.
 
Real justice should be served, and he should be tortured, deported, and stripped of all wealth obtained while in the country.

Pieces of shit like him deserve to die slow painful deaths.
 
I searched his name online and found out there's actually a Facebook hate page setup for him!
 
Look at this:
Enough's enough, Indiana Supreme Court tells prolific filer of lawsuits

Appellant's Verified Motion to Compel the Clerk of the Trial Court to Provide the Entire Record as Opposed to the Partial Record and to Extend Time for Brief to Be Filed Due to the Fact that the Appellant Does Not Have the Full Certified Record and the Record Needs to Be Complete and Fixed (Which Will Require Time) Because of the Clerk's Error in Providing Only a Partial Record or Alternatively to Relinquish Jurisdiction Back to the Trial Court by Mandating It to Fix the Record (the CCS) and to Provide the Court of Appeals and the Parties with the Corrected Full and Complete Fixed Record or Alternatively to Order the Clerk of this Court to Fix the CCS and to Provide the Complete Record or Alternatively to Allow the Appellant to Use His Own CCS Printed out by Him from the Odyssey Website."

The rambling titles burden court personnel and opposing parties and other attorneys, who must struggle with Zavodnik's filings.

"How do you even know what he is talking about?" offered Wuertz. "I got to the place that I would respond with a motion asking for a more definitive statement. I would tell the judge 'I really don't know what this says.'"
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magoo said:
No, you have it wrong.
The plaintiff is bringing the suit, all they can gain is a win.

In your case, the corporation can bring any suit they wish, but if the defense holds; the corporation is out the money.
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No it would virtually stop all lawsuits against large corps regardless if it wss valid simply due to the faft that if you lost they could claim their millions in legal team fees were paid hy the plaintiff

Now replace corp with anyone who is rich and you can see why that needs a lot more thought above an emotional response to a case like this
 
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He was just unlucky and got one of those people who can't wait to screw someone. I know exactly the kind. They wait for the right moment and screw you to the wall.
 
Man just goes to show you how crooked people are.
I use to sell stuff on Ebay and Craigslist all the time. Car amps, PA amps, etc.
I use to buy old PA amps on the side, repair them and sell them. Like a old Peavey CS400. I use to buy them non working for $20. Fix them; if they were really beat up, get $100, if they were nice, get $150-200 for one.
I dropped Ebay and stuck to CL; but I'm getting pretty tired of dealing with ass clowns wanting something for nothing. I think from now on I'm going to require the buyer to SIGN a waver stating item is AS-IS, no warranty or promise of ANYTHING and they completely understand and agree. I can demonstrate it works; but once they put their grubby mitts on it, it is theirs.
 
For those who don't want to read the link, the guy who sued is a known court troll, who sues random people and businesses, mostly from items bought online for outrageous sums of money. In this case it was that the guy who sold the printer was also representing himself at the time and the guy who sued claimed he did not respond to admission requests and by default when you don't respond in 30 days accounts as admission. This is when he finally got a lawyer and got that over turned.

What is amazing is that nothing has been done to this dude, the same day he was filing to appeal to it being over turned, he was submitting almost another 30 appeals to other bullshit cases he had going. This dude doesn't have a job, this is how he makes money, business rolling over and just paying him to go away, or random people who have no understanding of the law getting screwed over because of something they did or did not do, such as in this case. This is legal theft, nothing more. I can say, going through all of that, he would have disappeared long before it went back to trial.
 
Seriously, this is the reason I just throw crap into the recycling or put it out as a freebie. Selling crap has become such hassle. I baby all my gear and I'm still worried that some jackass is going to reverse paypal me if I sell it via eBay. Some people are just plain shitty.
 
dvsman said:
Seriously, this is the reason I just throw crap into the recycling or put it out as a freebie. Selling crap has become such hassle. I baby all my gear and I'm still worried that some jackass is going to reverse paypal me if I sell it via eBay. Some people are just plain shitty.
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Indeed... I've never been one to really sell my stuff, but I know people who get screwed over by such things.
 
The case was dismissed, but he had to pay about $12,000 in legal fees. He should have counter sued for lawyer fees and emotional distress because that's the only way to stop scammers.
 
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