27 replies
19h42m
While a favorable ruling for the Data Colada defendants seemed incredibly likely in the end (and of course being dismissed pre-trial before discovery is a good thing). But it still took over a year, and consisted of several pre-trial hearings with multiple back and forths between them. If I ctrl-f https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mad.259... I see Pyle (their lawyer) listed 11 times. All the motions and responses are a non-trivial amount of work.
Do folks have a sense of how much the costs would have been just to get dismissed for DC? Seems to be definitely over 10k (50k?) Or am I overestimating.
Fortunately, they were able to raise quite a bit of money (>$300K) on GoFundMe: https://www.gofundme.com/f/uhbka-support-data-coladas-legal-...
From the page: At present, Leif, Joe, and Uri do not have pro bono representation. The lawyers they’ve spoken to currently estimate that their defense could cost anywhere between $50,000 and $600,000 (depending on how far the lawsuit progresses).
That's scary, really. Having no money for this means you can't afford to fight these criminal crooks. Is this how this works in europe too?
No, where I live (Germany) you usually have a legal insurance to cover this. The costs are around 30€ per month in my case.
Corporate liability insurance in the US, which is also a very common thing to get, often does not cover your defense against "intentional torts" such as defamation or fraud. It usually covers things like slips and falls, product-related liability, etc. I would be surprised if your German version covers defamation.
I live next door and have some legal insurance, but you need to pay attention to what coverage you get, because you need to select what categories you want coverage for; vehicles (e.g. if someone who caused an accident refuses to cooperate with you), consumer/housing disputes, work and salary, taxes / stocks, family issues like inheritances, second homes / real estate, etc etc etc. And of course, you can't take out insurance for an ongoing issue, it doesn't cover criminal cases (when you did a bad), business cases, etc.
In Europe, the losing party of a lawsuit generally has to pay for the winner's legal expenses ("English rule"). Never had to go to court so I don't know what you do about the expenses in the meanwhile, but at least there's light at the end of the tunnel when someone sues you just for the heck of it.
In the US, you can ask for fee-shifting if you have been sued frivolously or there has otherwise been some wrongdoing on the part of the other side. These guys may be able to motion for fee-shifting given that the case was dismissed at this early stage.
State defamation cases usually apply anti-SLAPP laws that automatically create fee-shifting in this exact circumstance, but this seems to be a federal case.
Europe may be too wide a categorization, I am pretty sure that different countries have different ways to deal with the matter.
My (thankfully very little) experience in Italy is for civil litigations at least (where it is rare that one of the two parties get 100% reason) expenses are usually compensated (i.e. every party pays their own ones), in the more rare case where all expenses are paid by the succumbing party, what is liquidated is not really what has been paid, but rather what the expenses would be along some sort of tariff.
If your solicitor/lawyer is a famous (presumably very good as you won) one, it is likely that the amount you spend is much higher than what the judge condemned the other party to reimburse you.
I was aware of that, but I would still be interested to know the actual costs. I do not think "it is ok to blog about potential fraud in scientific publications because GoFundMe will pay for my lawyers" is a good assumption for most individuals.
I see people saying it is a win for open science, and I just look at that Court Listener page and it still fills me with angst.
I'm pretty sure this guy wouldn't get out of bed for $10k:
https://princelobel.com/professional/jeffrey-j-pyle/
Although given that the New Yorker stated that Pyle "appeared not only professionally but personally incensed by the fact of the lawsuit", perhaps some of the work was pro bono.
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/how-a-scientific-di...
Thankfully, a lot of the filings appear short enough that I doubt he's going to charge very much. I assume the retainer was still $20-30k, but they may get some of it back.
I was hoping that there would be some fee-shifting here, but it's federal court.
I would guess a 20-30k retainer in this occurrence would be a discounted retainer as well. I say this just based upon my personal experience with a few smaller firms.
If you're known to be good for the money, you can often get lower retainer bills from lawyers. That's why Donald Trump has to put up tens of millions for any legal project. Many of my lawyers do not ask for retainers for work at all, even for bigger things.
I don't know him or this case, but lawyers tend to often feel that way about the cases they are representing. I wouldn't think that means he's not billing.
You are underestimating...
I would agree. I'm the defendant in a (frivolous) trademark infringement case and my firm (which does work for the EFF) averages about 2 hours per (substantial) page, at a rate of $500/hour. I do wonder in the back of my mind if I'm being taken to the cleaners...
I have a limited experience, only having been involved in one trademark case professionally and am not a lawyer, but this was a case that very quickly settled and fees were still close to $30,000.
I’m not familiar with civil court in the US, but wouldn’t the plaintiff have to cover the legal expenses of the defendant, if the defendant is cleared? Or similar rulings.
Even if it is, it happens months or years later, with today's interest rates you would still end up with a debt unless you have the capital. I'm not even talking about the emotional toll and stress, especially when you're the good guy, just have to prove it..
No, both sides of a lawsuit are generally responsible for their own costs regardless of what the outcome is. There are some caveats to this, like anti-SLAPP laws, but that's how it generally goes. This is basically in contrast to every other western democracy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney%27s_fe...
It's not just the money. When you're the target of litigation, particularly irregular specialist domain stuff that it can really take over your life.
You might recover some of your legal costs from your opponent, but the disruption to your life will not be compensated.
Not to mention the time it takes. So not only are you losing money, losing time, and it's emotionally taxing, but you often aren't even making money during that time.
Ahh, sweet summer child who has never seen these kind of legal fees.
I do hope Gino gets socked with their legal fees.
This is why we need anti-SLAPP laws.
You are probably not overestimating.
Generally, I would guess conferring with the client on the facts, briefing, preparing for a hearing, and arguing a hearing would be north of, at least, 25k, assuming a lower-end rate estimate in the $800+ range and a lower-end work estimate of 30+ hours. If I had to bet, I'd go higher than the low-end estimate: both the rate and hours could be close to double. That said, the attorney / firm could be donating the time on this one.
Have you seen Harvard's endowment?
I'm sure there's counterdamages and he can take a percentage