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by gadrfgaesgysd 3940 days ago
The backers got their money back. And the defendant lost a lot more money than just the restitution. The penalty was harsh, but I don't see why it was unjust.

Do you think the plaintiffs should get more money than they deserved?

3 comments

> Do you think the plaintiffs should get more money than they deserved?

I'll be charitable and assume you meant more money than they invested. What plaintiffs deserve is debatable, presupposing it is begging the question.

A very, very tiny minority of the backers got their money back: 31 out of 810 backers, receiving their $668 out of the $25,146 total pleged. The rest of the backers are unlikely to see a penny now, because all their money is going to the state in the form of legal fees and civil penalties. That's certainly not justice.
It's unfortunate that our legal system is set up in such a way that you would need $24k in legal fees to settle a case like this.
teraflop gave a great answer why this is so: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10206606
Well, I wasn't really talking about the magnitude of the costs involved. You could certainly argue that a case like this requires too many hours of lawyers' time, or that those hours are overvalued. I don't personally know of any better alternative systems that would be useful to compare against.