aria
Former Moderator
- Joined
- Dec 4, 1977
- Posts
- 39,546
So what's new in the never ending litigation (if any of you have been involved in a lawsuit, you might realize I'm joking since all cases seem to take forever):
First we will look at the publically listed report, then I will give a little bit of light analysis:
(Courtesy of a little bird on the boards with PACER):
9/15/03 66 MINUTES (In Chambers) by Discovery Marc L. Goldman:re
order to show. It is hereby ORDERED that plaintiff and
defendants Dion Dakis and Chris Ray shall appear before the
court on 10/2/03 at 10:00am and show cause why judgment
should not be entered in accordance with the settlement
agreement placed on the record at the hearing held on
6/18/03. Defendants Dakis and Ray shall also be prepared to
show cause why sanctions should not be imposed against them
for failing to execute the settlement documents in
accordance with the agreement reached and placed upon the
record on 6/18/03. Should the parties submit an executed
settlement agreement for filing prior to the date of the
hearing, the hearing shall be taken off calendar. (mt)
[Entry date 09/16/03]
Analysis
[QUICK NOTE: Earlier, if you missed it, Chris came onto this board and, in typical NGF fashion, made a, umm... hyperbole in claiming that the case was over and NGF was basically vindicated. Well, now here's more record of the truth (which is like kryptonite to NGF): Both sides Settled]
What does that mean? Several possibilities: The court costs of litigation were probably going in a direction that just made it too expensive for either side to want to continue. Usually, a settlement is a mutually agreed upon arrangement with results that fall somewhere between the requests of both parties. (i.e. the person sued has to pay much less, but still pay; or the person sued could agree to not do something again; or whatever -there are lots of different possibilities).
WHY SETTLE? Simple: if you're the party getting sued, you can pay a little less and not have a legal judgment against you. That can help a lot when you're planning on doing similar work later (which is why big corporations like to settle toxic waste cases, etc that could embarrass them if they were actually adjudicated to find them legally liable). A settlment can be kept private without any sort of legal order sealing the judgement or what have you.
Let's talk hypothetically: If you're a company, say FGN, and you get caught selling a pirated product (lets call the game Troopers Shock) to the company that owns all copyrights to it (lets call that company USA-Geo-Neo), and they drag you to court, your best interests are in staying away from a legal judgment (in the public record) saying exactly what the Court has found you to have done. What you'd want to do is Settle: Essentially, you acquiesing to the big company so that they will just "forget it" and you can move on with your life without a legal judgment hanging over your head (which is bad when you're real life job may involve financial advisement).
So what happened here?
- NGF and Playmore came to a settlement: What that settlement entailed and who came out with a better hand may not be answered fully (neither side probably came out a total winner).
- Since it's settled, there would be no legal judgment for or against either side, we'll never know who came out with what
- OF COURSE THERE IS A SNAG HERE: it looks like Dion and Chris haven't exactly followed their half of the bargain (which is what a settlement essentially is).
- Since NGF isn't doing their part of the settlement (they probably had up to a certain date to do something, but didnt), Playmore is trying to get them sanctioned for violating a court agreement. What they didn't do is up for speculation.
LESSON:
Chris came onto this website (and it's recorded on this website's forums) that he represented himself; that lawyers are a waste of money; and that everything was going to be okay ... ... ...
Well, he just fulfilled the classic saying: "He who represents himself has a fool for a client"
...And now we have the proof of his foolishness
First we will look at the publically listed report, then I will give a little bit of light analysis:
(Courtesy of a little bird on the boards with PACER):
9/15/03 66 MINUTES (In Chambers) by Discovery Marc L. Goldman:re
order to show. It is hereby ORDERED that plaintiff and
defendants Dion Dakis and Chris Ray shall appear before the
court on 10/2/03 at 10:00am and show cause why judgment
should not be entered in accordance with the settlement
agreement placed on the record at the hearing held on
6/18/03. Defendants Dakis and Ray shall also be prepared to
show cause why sanctions should not be imposed against them
for failing to execute the settlement documents in
accordance with the agreement reached and placed upon the
record on 6/18/03. Should the parties submit an executed
settlement agreement for filing prior to the date of the
hearing, the hearing shall be taken off calendar. (mt)
[Entry date 09/16/03]
Analysis
[QUICK NOTE: Earlier, if you missed it, Chris came onto this board and, in typical NGF fashion, made a, umm... hyperbole in claiming that the case was over and NGF was basically vindicated. Well, now here's more record of the truth (which is like kryptonite to NGF): Both sides Settled]
What does that mean? Several possibilities: The court costs of litigation were probably going in a direction that just made it too expensive for either side to want to continue. Usually, a settlement is a mutually agreed upon arrangement with results that fall somewhere between the requests of both parties. (i.e. the person sued has to pay much less, but still pay; or the person sued could agree to not do something again; or whatever -there are lots of different possibilities).
WHY SETTLE? Simple: if you're the party getting sued, you can pay a little less and not have a legal judgment against you. That can help a lot when you're planning on doing similar work later (which is why big corporations like to settle toxic waste cases, etc that could embarrass them if they were actually adjudicated to find them legally liable). A settlment can be kept private without any sort of legal order sealing the judgement or what have you.
Let's talk hypothetically: If you're a company, say FGN, and you get caught selling a pirated product (lets call the game Troopers Shock) to the company that owns all copyrights to it (lets call that company USA-Geo-Neo), and they drag you to court, your best interests are in staying away from a legal judgment (in the public record) saying exactly what the Court has found you to have done. What you'd want to do is Settle: Essentially, you acquiesing to the big company so that they will just "forget it" and you can move on with your life without a legal judgment hanging over your head (which is bad when you're real life job may involve financial advisement).
So what happened here?
- NGF and Playmore came to a settlement: What that settlement entailed and who came out with a better hand may not be answered fully (neither side probably came out a total winner).
- Since it's settled, there would be no legal judgment for or against either side, we'll never know who came out with what
- OF COURSE THERE IS A SNAG HERE: it looks like Dion and Chris haven't exactly followed their half of the bargain (which is what a settlement essentially is).
- Since NGF isn't doing their part of the settlement (they probably had up to a certain date to do something, but didnt), Playmore is trying to get them sanctioned for violating a court agreement. What they didn't do is up for speculation.
LESSON:
Chris came onto this website (and it's recorded on this website's forums) that he represented himself; that lawyers are a waste of money; and that everything was going to be okay ... ... ...
Well, he just fulfilled the classic saying: "He who represents himself has a fool for a client"
...And now we have the proof of his foolishness
