Thanks for sharing 😆 10/10 very satisfying
Comment on Hey look, a giant sign telling you to find a different job
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 days agoI’ve worked with Fortune 100 companies that were total Mickey Mouse outfits.
I got sued by a big supplier over literally nothing, after I had refused to honor an illegal clause in a contract (which literally would have put me out of business, so it was a serious issue). They couldn’t sue me for that, so they claimed I hadn’t returned some rented equipment, which was a lie. But they said that I better pay up ($10K), because who did I think the judge was going to believe, some loser (their lawyer’s word), or a Fortune 500 company? I didn’t say it, but in MY county, I doubted the judge was going to favor the big corporation.
When we got to court, I had my lawyer ask me about my new supplier’s inventory control system, and explained how the new system had bar codes, and every piece of gear is carefully tracked. The company that was suing me, couldn’t even tell the court how many they had in stock, how many they rented out, etc.
The judge looked at the Plaintiffs, and said, “This is the most amateurish inventory control system I’ve ever seen. I don’t understand how you got to be a Fortune 500 company by doing business this way. You expect me to tell this man to pay you $10,000, when you don’t even know if the equipment is actually missing?”
She found for me, AND made them pay my legal fees.
victorz@lemmy.world 3 days ago
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 days ago
Thanks, I still smile when I think of it. I had some more fun details in an answer another post, so make sure you see that one, too.
Obi@sopuli.xyz 3 days ago
Fuck yeah, congrats.
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 days ago
It was cool walking out of court with my lawyer, both of us wanting to celebrate, but the other team was walking down the dejectedly, shoulders slumped, so we didn’t want to interrupt THAT. They got their asses handed to them badly, and they were feeling it. My lawyer grabbed my arm and pulled me into an alcove and pretended to use the water fountain, and said “We make a GOOD TEAM!” We played them like a fiddle, and she was rightfully excited.
That final monologue from the judge wasn’t the only fun thing that happened.
They were first questioning the regional inventory rep, and the local branch manager kept whispering in his ear. After a few questions, the judge asked “Who are you?”
“The local branch manager.”
“Are you under oath?”
“Uhhh…”
“NO! YOU ARE NOT! SO BE QUIET! When I want to hear from you, you’ll be put under oath, and then you can talk. Until then, be quiet.” She was giving peak Judge Judy vibes.
Then it got really good. The judge then said: “In fact, I want you to sit by yourself in the back of the courtroom. MOVE!” And he had to go sit by himself in the back of the empty courtroom like a fucking misbehaving child. Heh-heh.
And when he did testify, he brought no supporting documents with him. He couldn’t tell how many times a year they inventoried their gear, how many they had in inventory the last time, how many they had in stock today, and I even had my lawyer ask if they repurposed equipment for other uses, to which he said Yes, but then couldn’t say how many had been repurposed at all. He literally had no grasp at all about how much inventory they had. Nearly every answer was “I don’t know.”
This was the testimony they were relying on to accuse me of stealing from them, which I hadn’t done. They were literally counting on the judge finding against me just because they were a big company.
By the time judge had to render her decision, she was REALLY pissed off at them. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to hear a judge tear into the people that have wrongfully tortured and harassed you for the last couple years.
Sc00ter@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
in MY county
Howd you manage that? Any company worth a shit had a clause that all cases be held where they decide, typically where theyre head quartered
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 days ago
I’m no lawyer, but from what I understand, they have to sue in the county where the violation took place, so that would be the location of my business, since supposedly it was my business that stole the equipment.
Sc00ter@lemmy.zip 3 days ago
Ah probably because they sued you. I think the clause usually is a catch all for people filing claims against them. Thanks!
purple_mimosa@lemmy.world 3 days ago
This is great, but at the end of the day, they still harassed you with their bs lawsuit, and they still gave you 2 years of stress. Justice would be them getting counter-sued and you getting compensation for psychological trauma. (even though you will never get your health back 100% from a process like that.)
BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today 3 days ago
I can’t argue with that, but there wasn’t really a case in that.
merc@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
One reason why there are so many nonsense lawsuits in the US is that unlike Europe and the UK, it’s unusual that the loser has to pay the winner’s costs. In Europe that’s standard. As a result, an American person or group is much more likely to sue, because if they lose all it costs them is their own legal fees. AFAIK they also do the reasonable thing and cap fees so that if someone sues a rich multinational corp and loses, they’re not out millions of dollars because the multinational hired a huge, expensive team to defend themselves.
Justice would really be a world where these nonsense lawsuits didn’t happen at all.
ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
Contrary to popular belief, the US isn’t actually unusually litigious. European countries are just as litigious and Germany, Sweden and Austria all have higher numbers.
The reason we have more “nonsense” lawsuits is because we have a culture that says caveat emptor is a sound defense and negligence on one parties side is equally the fault of the injured party.
“Why didn’t you look at your food before biting the metal fillings? It’s your responsibility to make sure what you eat is safe” and “you walked on my icy sidewalk, you slipped, and now you want me to pay for your ambulance? I should have put down salt, but you should have known better than to walk there” are both reasonable statements to a lot of Americans. Hell, we have special derogatory terms for lawyers that work with individuals who have been non-criminally injured by someone else.
On paper, paying the other parties legal fees if you lose sounds good, but what it does it keep individuals who can’t afford to pay legal someone else’s fees to withold valid legal complaints. In an ideal world they would proceed because they were right, but we live in a world where sometimes the person in the right looses, or they reasonably thought they were and were wrong. Due diligence or actual correctness is no assurance of justice, so a lawsuit is a gamble and a more expensive one if you also have to pay the other parties costs, and if they’re a business which has lawyers on staff they might not even view a crippling legal cost as an increased expense.
On the other side that business just tells their lawyer to file the paperwork, they’re already paying for the legal consult so they’re advised going in if it’s a good idea, and if they lose they’re out a few weeks of lawyer salary.
Lawsuits are a mark of people using societies tools to resolve disputes. There being more in places with higher trust in social institutions makes sense. People are willing to use the system and they trust it’ll deliver justice.
The US is up there because people need to use lawsuits to make up for our lack in social safety nets, and our preposterous number of businesses are constantly using them to settle disputes.
We should eliminate the court fees entirely and provide the trial lawyer equivalent of a public defender.
A bolt in your oatmeal is a good reason to sue, and if you can’t afford a lawyer to help you pay to get your tooth put back in it doesn’t seem unreasonable for society to give you access to someone to help you find a path to remunerations.