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by coding123 2950 days ago
This is a civil case obviously, so all that jail stuff won't apply to this, but just curious... If cheap litigation is 20K, and "battling out with a judge" is 100K how come the first time I'm hearing about this is in a HN comment? Seems like no one is going up to bat against this stuff until it affects them.

Reminds me of that famous poem "First they came for the ..."
2 comments
Jach 2950 days ago
Peter Thiel got a lot of flak for this comment: "If you’re middle class, if you’re upper middle class, if you’re a single digit millionaire like Hulk Hogan, you have no effective access to our legal system. It costs too much. This was the modus operandi of Gawker in large part, to go after people who had no chance of fighting back."

It's somewhat hard to square with "litigious culture" criticisms of some parts of the country. But the details matter. Filing & defending in small-claims court is pretty cheap without a lawyer (and even with one is "only" in the small thousands) and person-vs-person cases won't be too terrible compared to companies-vs-individuals...

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dmitrygr 2950 days ago
Good point. In civil cases the equivalent is a "settlement offer". Made famous my the RIAA. Pay us $5000/song you downloaded or we'll sue you for $5 million, and you cannot afford that. We might not win, but if we do, you're boned!
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retsibsi 2950 days ago
> We might not win, but if we do, you're boned!

Isn't it worse than that -- more like 'we might not win, but you're probably boned either way'? I may be wrong but I have the impression that it's relatively rare to be awarded full costs, and anyway you'll have to pay your lawyers up front.

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