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Man Sued For $30K Over $40 Craigslist Printer
- Thread starter HardOCP News
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Haven't sold anything on ebay for a long time. Most the cheaper stuff isn't worth selling any more due to the higher costs.
Cheap stuff just gets donated now. If I ever have the time I might get around to listing some of the junk I have piling up that I could make some money on.
D
Deleted member 108676
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This is why I don't sell used shit save for trading in cars.
Not worth it. Too many worthless pieces of shit out there looking for a free buck.
Not worth it. Too many worthless pieces of shit out there looking for a free buck.
steakman1971
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I got screwed over something on Ebay for about $100. I contacted Ebay, pretty much told me I was screwed. They protect the buyers really well, but the sellers don't have much to fall back on. For my part, it wasn't going after the guy so I just let it go. I also haven't tried to sell anything on Ebay in a long time.
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Zarathustra[H]
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Jeez.
I'm not usually one to support vigilante justice, but someone needs to throw this Zavodnik guy a blanket part.
He needs the living daylights beaten out of him.
I'm not usually one to support vigilante justice, but someone needs to throw this Zavodnik guy a blanket part.
He needs the living daylights beaten out of him.
D
Deleted member 184142
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Read the link, it explains where the numbers came from, more or less, in those cases, if sent a notice of admission and you don't respond to it in 30 days, the court takes that as a default agreement of admission. The troll sent notices of 600,000, 300,000 and 30,000 hoping we he would not reply to one along the way, which he did not (he had no lawyer at the time) and so the court (by default) settled with the troll.
Maybe have them sign a "sold as is, no warranty, no refund" form.
even if you don't respond the maximum amount rewarded should not exceed the total value of the original item (plus some extra fees)...getting it up to $30,000 is insane
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Deleted member 184142
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Except that does not matter if both parties agree on a settlement, which is in effect what those notices are meant for, and by default and not responding he was agreeing to the 30,000 in the notice. Is it insane? Yes. Is it something in the law that needs to be changed? Yes, along with millions of others, and good luck waiting for anything to happen about it, this is why we have trolls like this in the first place, and is no different than the big business trolls that sue companies for patents. If you are good at it, you can make allot of money.
The other judge who over turned this said that while technically the ruling was correct to the letter of the law, it was not in the spirit of what the law was meant to be used for, which was quickly settling with the two parties, not as a "Aha! Got you!", so it was over turned, however he is now appealing it again.
He just would have came up with another excuse. The point was to throw enough legal balls in the air to get the seller to miss one or not get it returned in time so he would win by default.
It's a shame how some people are living off of this. A friend of mines was recently sued by a guy who goes around the country with is lawyer and sues restaurants for disability act violations. It's always something petty like the toilet is a half inch too low, or a pull bar is inch too high. He hits a couple of mom and pop restaurants in the area, sue them for an amount that would basically put them out of business, which forces the family to settle. They've done it for years and there isn't really anything that can be done about it.
D
Deleted member 93354
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It took me a while to decipher this statement, but the plaintiff is blaming the court for his loss because he could not provide a full required and documented proof of his evidence on time because the clerk failed to request so in a timely manner. Which is complete and utter bull. This is why there are trail extensions.
I'm wondering if he sold on Ebay instead, and this butthead tried this crap... the most he would be out was the transaction price (cost of printer + shipping) right? Doesn't Ebay EULA give you some sort of protection against being sued by asshats?
I've been using Ebay for quite a while and I've only been boned on one transaction. And I got the USPS insurance payment for shipment damage, so really I only lost time and shipping $.
edit - knocks on wood!
I've been using Ebay for quite a while and I've only been boned on one transaction. And I got the USPS insurance payment for shipment damage, so really I only lost time and shipping $.
edit - knocks on wood!
This or a car bomb. Or pay a hacker to destroy his credit and empty his bank accounts. But those things would be wrong.
D
Deleted member 93354
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1. Mark everything "Sold as is with no claim as to warranty or fitness for a specific purpose"
2. Mark "Not responsible for damage to shipped items. Buyer responsible for insurance cost"
3. Proof of condition of sale item and working state available upon request.
Then there's prepaid legal...which I think is a bit of a scam. But hey it will protect you in lawsuits.
D
Deleted member 93354
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double jeopardy only applies when the state is going after you.
jbltecnicspro
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Go ahead and check the article out if you haven't already. There's a picture of him with a big shit-eating grin on his face. Disgusting really.
According to another article, this guy who filed the lawsuit has a history of doing this.
"The printer's buyer was Gersh Zavodnik, a 54-year-old Indianapolis man known to many in the legal community as a frequent lawsuit filer."
This guy is a real scumbag. He obviously is making living off doing this. And what a surprise, he has a "thick Russian accent".
"The printer's buyer was Gersh Zavodnik, a 54-year-old Indianapolis man known to many in the legal community as a frequent lawsuit filer."
This guy is a real scumbag. He obviously is making living off doing this. And what a surprise, he has a "thick Russian accent".
D
Deleted member 222586
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This is how your current system works:
a) XYZ company threatens to sue you for random reasons.
b) You are legally right.
c) You have a choice. Either pay the sum they demand, or pay the sum of your legal fees. Either way, you have to pay.
Instead, the loser pays makes much more sense. If you are right then legally defending yourself is completely free of charge. Companies would stop randomly sueing because it would cost them money.
The USA has a very shitty law system. If a big company sues you, you are simply toast, no matter if you are right or wrong. You lose both ways.
It can't be worse than the current system you have in place. It simply can't be. And it isn't. If the defendant has to pay irregardless of whether he wins or loses then the system is faulty.
There are issues with either system. Even if you are legally right or morally right or whatever, you can still be screwed due to some technicality. That alone can screw many cases over regardless of who's right and who's wrong. And without a jury to every case, and it's a judge.... the judge could easily be corrupt or in favor of one person due to any reason. You can say, they should recuse themselves, but that's only if it's found out.
Looks like this one is slipped by.
Actually it's not quite a hate page, more like a "dislike and disapproval" page against his character (Gersh Zavodnik).
If you give it away, these ass clowns can still sue you for some BS like a house fire or whatever. That's the sad part. Best give it Salvation Army or Goodwill if you're not comfortable selling it. You should always put as-is for anything sold, if people don't like that, nobody forced them to buy from you. I'm amazed this lawsuit gained so much traction.
So under a "loser pays" system, what if you have what you think is a legitimate reason to sue...say, Comcast? How much will they spend on their defense? Can you afford to cover their costs if you lose? All of a sudden the risk is considerably higher for you, possibly so high that you have to just say "forget it, I can't risk losing everything I own over my lawn being torn up and never fixed."
That is a great point.... under the loser pays, if someone wanted to screw anyone over, they can hire tons of lawyers, wouldn't that make it even worst? I mean, we see lawsuit drag for ages. This is potentially much more damaging.
Exactly. You could count on a large company like Comcast being able to spend a LOT of money to fight your suit. If you're suing for $15,000 and Comcast is going to spend $100,000 fighting it, can you afford to lose? Most people probably can't. So then what do you do? Tell people how much they're allowed to spend on their legal defense? Tell people which lawyers and lawfirms they can and can't hire? I don't know.
D
Deleted member 222586
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Your answer is ilogical. If you sue Comcast for $2000 they will not spend $100.000 in lawyers. Ever. Specially if they will have to pay both yours and theirs if they lose. The good thing is that you will be able to actually defend yourself reliably. As in the accusers will better have a good reason to go on to you as they will pay huge sums if they fuck up and it will not cost you a dime. Otherwise you end up with a system that gives people with money the bigger stick simply because they can actually engage in costly trials.
No, it isn't. It's exactly the contrary. Right now, the system works like this.
a) I think you are in the wrong. So I sue you.
b) Irregardless of who is in the wrong, or who wins, we both have to pay our lawyer fees. Which means that if I'm richer than you are I can simply destroy your economy once and again because gain or lose you have to pay money for your lawyers.
With the loser pays... I will not sue you unless I'm completely sure that I have reasons to. And If I sue you and you know that I'm right we will settle so that the losing part doesn't have to pay money on attorneys.
Just think about it.
Again, Comcast will never spend $100,000 in defending against $15,000 unless they know their chance of winning is fairly high. At which point you shouldn't have sued them in the first place. Companies use logic to sue others. And you aren't. As It is, companies run around requiring others to pay certain amounts (basically extorting them) or to face them in court. If they go to court they will end up coughing more money (whether they win or lose the suit) so they simply pay when extorted to not end up paying way more in the future. The "loser pays..." simply ends this extortion scheme.
Excep that doesn't always happen. You are kind of assuming the "right" always win, but it's not the defendant or the plaintiff that decides. It's the judge in these civil cases, and they are far from being above it all.
Bootleg Usher
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"Because Costello did not respond to all three requests for admissions within 30 days of receiving them, and did not ask for an extension of time, as required by Indiana trial rules, Costello admitted to the liabilities and damages by default. He also did not appear at a July 2013 hearing, according to court records."
This is complete BS, no system should work this way. Any allegation should have to be proven regardless of the defendant attending. It's called innocent until proven guilty, and it's done through ex parte trials.
This is complete BS, no system should work this way. Any allegation should have to be proven regardless of the defendant attending. It's called innocent until proven guilty, and it's done through ex parte trials.
Except losing the suit to you may set a bad precedent for them, and it may look bad as well. More importantly - is that really a gamble you're willing to take? Even more importantly you could look at it another way - what if you're suing a large company for a million dollars. Can you afford to pay $250,000 to their legal defense team if you lose? How would class action suits work if they(the class) lose?
Your further comments undermine your position - You state that Comcast wouldn't spend a large amount of money to defend themselves unless they were sure they would win, but you also state that the person with the most money has the advantage in the current legal system *because* of how much they can spend. So which is it? Does a great(and expensive) legal team improve your chances in court? Or does money make no difference and the "right" party wins the case every time regardless of money spent on legal teams?
Loser pays would shift the balance in favor of those that have large amounts of money on the other side of things whether you want to admit it or not.
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I get what you mean, but I don't think that ever applied to civil suit, which isn't great either.
Extra-Titanian
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Pretty sure there's some sort of mitigation requirement. So kinda like how if you get hit in a parking lot or something, your repair bill can't be from the most expensive place in the country if there's multiple places that can do it for far less.
Can't deny that, but companies normally have tons of lawyers on their lawsuits. So, what mitigation would their be? It'd be a standard practice.
Extra-Titanian
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I think it'd be like how if you're suing someone for damaging your car door or something, you can't just go and get the entire car repainted on their dime. If a national corporation such as Comcast with a dedicated legal department got sued, they would probably have to prove that it was necessary to use the personnel that they did. So if someone sued them because one of their drivers ran over a dog or something, they wouldn't be able to approach it with the numbers and intensity that they would a patent dispute from a rival company.
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Deleted member 222586
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Class-actions, in their current implementation, only give money to the lawyers in the first place. Heck, the whole American rule (everyone pays his own) means that lawyers take a huge part of the pie.
In your example. If you are suing Comcast by whiever reason and they won... why should they have to lose money out of the deal? You get sued, and you lose both ways. You lose because you might lose the trial, and you lose because you have to pay your fees. Its a lose-lose situation. Except for the lawyers, who get payed both ways. Again, if you sue them for $1.000.000 and they win it is obvious you should pay for the legal defense team. You made that defense team work in the first place, so why shouldn't you pay for it? This is like having a car accident: the one that caused the crash has to pay.
Are you kidding me? If I'm rich and I have already hired an expensive laywer team I can simply screw people over because since I already have the team hired the cost to me is the same regardless of whether I won or I lose. And because of that, I don't even have to go on trial. "You either cough up $1,000 or face me on trial". Poor people are screwed under USA system. The best analogy to "english rule" would be nukes. Having nukes (english rule) is a big deterrent against being attacked (sued). Defending yourself against an unlawful opponent should be free of charge. Which is why trolls only exist in the USA and not in Europe. Simply put, companies that rely on suing other companies only survive in Europe by actually winning their trials. Which means that nobody gets sued over some bullshit, because that will cost them a lot of money.
In the end, its all about perspective. The plaintiff will always want to be under american rule, whether the defendant will prefer the english rule. And since we are all innocent unless proven otherwise... the more "just" system is, undoubtedly, the english rule.