Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist • Hacker News Board

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#71

Post by vinceguidry » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:56 PM UTC

nickpsecurity wrote: post #55

vinceguidry wrote: post #17

Had this been me, at some point I'd have driven to the bar, and asked the biggest guys I could find if they'd take $500 to show up at the guy's house and scare the living crap out of him. Escalate accordingly. There aren't that many situations left in this country that call for intimidation / violence, but malicious litigation is one of them.

I agree under 2nd Amendment authority. All others have to be exhausted, though, before that can apply. So, first try your Congress people about passing laws limiting it. See if the LEO's will do anything about the abuse. Try the courts. If they all ignore the corrupt behavior, you're left with no choice but using violence to deter the aggressor. Just make it untraceable with an alibi.

It's definitely worth a few phone calls, I personally have some connected people I could turn to if I ever had to deal with something like this, but I didn't always.

What makes violence a viable option is the fact that you're dealing with one person and not an organization. If it's more than one person's efforts you have to counter, then yielding is the better recourse. A group of people will have a goal in mind when taking action against you, all you have to do is help them reach that goal and they'll bugger off. You can fight a group effectively but it's generally not worth it.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#72

Post by will_brown » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

mjolk wrote: post #62

>The printer's buyer was Gersh Zavodnik, a 54-year-old Indianapolis man known to many in the legal community as a frequent lawsuit filer who also represents himself in court. The Indiana Supreme Court said the "prolific, abusive litigant" has brought dozens of lawsuits against individuals and businesses, often asking for astronomical damages...Zavodnik, a native of Ukraine who moved to the United States in 1987 under…

Not that it will help this particular individual at this time, unfortunately, but check out this Ask HN I posted yesterday about crowdfunding lawsuits, still on Ask front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11842051

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#73

Post by mattkrause » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:58 PM UTC

vortico wrote: post #49

MichaelBurge wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'loser pays' has a couple disadvantages: * It encourages people to pick the best, most expensive lawyer in town for every case no matter the expense, because your opponent will be picking up the tab. * It discourages people from using the courts to resolve their disputes, which means people without resources tend not to get any justice. If, say, your landlord steals your $1500 security deposit for no good reason, are…

In your second example, wouldn't "loser pays" make the plaintiff more likely to persue, since he is likely to recover the $5000 in damages from the landlord who took $1500 for no reason?

Imagine that the case is pretty good, but not airtight--let's say there's 2:1 odds, or a 75% chance, that you recover your money.

The expected value of the lawsuit is therefore (0.751500) + (0.25-5000) = -$125, which means that very few people will go after the crooked landlord. If the leasing company has deep pockets, they could slant the outcome even further in their favor. Spend $10,000 instead and the expected value is now -$1,375. This seems wrong.

On top of this, you also have to worry about the risk of ruin. Imagine a bet where Bill Gates pays you $15M if a coin comes up heads, but you pay him $10M if it comes up tails. This bet has a positive expected value (+$5M), but most people won't take it because the losing outcome is completely devastating (unless someone rich is backing you).

I wonder if anywhere has a rule where the winning side receives min(loser's cost, winner's cost). That seems like it might be reasonably fair (if you can keep both sides from cooking the books).

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#74

Post by panglott » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 5:59 PM UTC

mamon wrote: post #43

Stupid question: if the printer was worth $40 ($75 with shipping) how come the damages are worth $30k ? Even if Costello was right I cannot see how "damages" suffered could exceed those 75 dollars by such a huge margin. In Europe even if he had won the case he would have been awarded $75 in damages, and probably another $50 in legal costs, that's all. Not possible to win $30k out of thin air. But the difference is th…

"According to court records, Zavodnik initially filed a lawsuit in Marion County Small Claims Court, where he asked for the maximum damages of $6,000. Zavodnik lost because he had thrown away the evidence (the printer), court records said. ...In 2010, Zavodnik sent Costello, who also was representing himself in the lawsuit, paperwork asking him to admit that he was liable for more than $30,000 for breach of contract, fraud and conversion. The trial court dismissed the case, along with 26 others filed by Zavodnik, who appealed all of those dismissals, court records state. ...Zavodnik also had sent Costello two more requests for admissions. One asked Costello to admit that he conspired with the judge presiding over the case, and that he was liable for more than $300,000. Another one requested Costello to admit that he was liable for more than $600,000.

Because Costello did not respond to all three requests for admissions within 30 days of receiving them, and did not ask for an extension of time, as required by Indiana trial rules, Costello admitted to the liabilities and damages by default."

There's no argument anywhere that this is proportional. He just filed that he was liable for the maximum possible in each case. Conceivably he could have been found liable for $600k by default.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#75

Post by jkyle » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 6:01 PM UTC

giarc wrote: post #46

opticalflow wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's assuming Zavodnik sent the requests via certified, registered mail. Zavodnik could have easily scribbled the address in unreadable gibberish and slapped a simple 1st class stamp on, in which case they would never have actually been delivered. Costello claims he never received anything.

Wouldn't the onus be on Zavodnik to prove he sent the documents by registered mail?

Since the opposite would be entirely impossible to prove (that Costello did not receive any mail), it certainly would be on Zavodnik to prove they were sent and received.

This is what the whole "You've been served" process is about.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#76

Post by nickff » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 6:07 PM UTC

texuf wrote: post #37

vonmoltke wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which "sensible legal system[s]" are these, and which ones punish plaintiffs for it rather than lawyers? Edit: I originally said "punish defendants ", but meant plaintiffs.

Or judges? I would want to sue the judge that awarded $30,000 for an allegedly broken printer. Edit: Found this article from Sep. 2014. [0] "The [Indiana] state high court, in an order issued Tuesday, called Zavodnik 'a prolific, abusive litigant' and put him on notice. In the unanimous ruling, the five justices warned the Ukraine-born U.S. citizen that he 'can expect any further abusive litigation practices ... to b…

The problem is that it seems that the judge made the legally correct determination, and that the majority of judges understand that this type of suit is ridiculous, but they have no tools to stop it.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#77

Post by 5ilv3r » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 6:08 PM UTC

Send him home.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#78

Post by rdtsc » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 6:10 PM UTC

jjnoakes wrote: post #69

rdtsc wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is if he wanted those delivered. I think the idea was he didn't because he wanted to get the default judgement.

Whether he wanted them delivered or not, the legal system should require proof on behalf of the server that the person being served was served correctly. Basic first class mail should never suffice.

It should but it doesn't obviously. Perhaps a video recording of delivery and asking for a signature should be required. Obviously some defendants could just start running away and refuse to sign, thus delaying the lawsuit forever. But also throwing the packet of paper in a mail with a stamp or dropping it on the front porch while yelling "you've been served" is also not quite cutting it. Something in the middle is needed.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#79

Post by fefifofu » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 6:13 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #47

MichaelBurge wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'loser pays' has a couple disadvantages: * It encourages people to pick the best, most expensive lawyer in town for every case no matter the expense, because your opponent will be picking up the tab. * It discourages people from using the courts to resolve their disputes, which means people without resources tend not to get any justice. If, say, your landlord steals your $1500 security deposit for no good reason, are…

A lot of those points are simply not true in a loser pays system, such as the UK or Australia. > It encourages people to pick the best, most expensive lawyer in town for every case no matter the expense, because your opponent will be picking up the tab. The court determines whether fees being claimed by the winner are reasonable. Bar associations (or the local equivalent) publish fee scales, and the courts will often…

One clarification regarding "the loser pays" system (here in Canada), is that the loser paying isn't the default. The default is each party pays their own costs. Then later the judge can decide to punish the loser if it was frivolous.

I've been through the small claims process twice recently. In one, the judge had power to make a binding decision and he put an end to the case against me after 10 minutes. In the other, it was a non-binding settlement meeting where he told the other party that they had no chance in court.

My point is that if you give the judge more power, good luck trying to game him and the system.

Re: Man sued for $30K over $40 printer he sold on Craigslist

#80

Post by BuckRogers » Mon, Jun 06, 2016, 6:18 PM UTC

giarc wrote: post #50

ytNumbers wrote: post #2

This article has persuaded me to never sell anything on Craigslist. Okay, the odds of running into a troll are tiny, but for a few bucks, it's just not worth the risk. Maybe Craigslist and similar sites need to start offering some kind of free insurance policy against trolls.

Just use a burner email and never give them your name. Meet in a public place and there's no tracing the item back to you. I imagine if you responded with mycraigslistemail@gmail.com and asked to meet in a public place, if you did happen to come upon a troll, they would stop the deal.

I've always done my Craigslist sales that way, sold a number of cellphones at the corner station. Then tried to sell an AppleTV but they wanted to come to my house to make sure it worked.

No random Craigslist clown is coming into the house where my wife sleeps, even if I escorted them in with a gun to their head because they could scope it out and come back later. I said I'd record a video of it working and send that over. No more replies. :)