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

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

#81

Post by jkaunisv1 »

jjnoakes wrote: post #70
fiatmoney wrote: post #11

There's no good reason not to be relatively anonymous when buying or selling on craigslist.

When money changes hands, short of using something like cash, how does John Doe remain anonymous? I assume once the matter is in front of a court it is only a matter of time before your identity is readily available. Some form of obfuscating one's name and/or address may raise the bar a bit, but I don't see how this is a solution to the problem of malicious litigation for selling something on craig's list.

Short of using something like cash...for buying something off Craigslist? What else would you use? Why do you make it sound so difficult to use the most easily accessible form of currency around? Joe Craigslist isn't going to have a debit/credit machine for me to pay on. I'm not writing him a personal cheque. Use a burner email, don't give names, meet in a public place..how would you track somebody down like that?

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

#82

Post by BuckRogers »

SilasX wrote: post #23
vinhboy wrote: post #6

> Special Judge J. Jeffrey Edens issued a ruling. He awarded Zavodnik a judgment of $30,044.07 for breach of contract. Holy cow. This guy needs to be fired immediately. That is beyond gross negligence.

Depends: are judges supposed to spot-check claims for whether they're reasonable? Or do they leave that entirely as "the defense's job"? Remember, these were default judgments.

Yup, sounds like a $40 default judgement to me. I always thought it would be great to be a judge, but I'm far from jumping through all those hoops. If I were one, I'd grant exact, verifiable damages in cases like this. It would have to be a civil case over child molestation, assault, murder or rape to get me to award funny money. In those relatively extreme cases involving heinous crimes, I'd be sure to ruin the life of the perp.

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

#83

Post by pierrebai »

wl wrote: post #24
baldfat wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Default in court is just broken. Facts matter more then did someone show up. This is just broken.

If you can avoid adverse judgements by just not showing up for court, you incentivize people to not show up. That's not any more fair. There has to be something to lose for not showing up and default is what the legal system has chosen.

You're setting up both a strawman and a false dichotomy. People are not arguing that you should win by not showing up. (Unless the suit is clearly fraudulent.) It's just that the default judgment should not be so disproportionate. There is no reason to give a 30K judgment about a 40$ printer. That's almost a 1000x multiplier. A 400$ judgment would have sent the right signal without being crippling.

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

#84

Post by wagglycocks »

BuckRogers wrote: post #80
giarc wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I admire your cautiousness. You certainly are a strong male and will surely be rewarded with offspring for being such a gallant mate.

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

#85

Post by koolba »

nickff wrote: post #76
texuf wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

If they had the tools to stop it, and chose to use them based on their determination rather than the "rules" (no matter how nonsensical they be), we'd be throwing a fit about activist judges legislating from the bench.

The separation of powers is there for a reason and it's not the judiciary that needs to solve this.

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

#86

Post by strictnein »

busterarm wrote: post #66

Going to be a bit flippant here, but if I sold somebody a $40 used printer and they mugged me using the courts for $30,000, I would seriously consider murder to be a viable option towards resolution. Good on this guy for keeping his wits about him through all this. Guy probably needs a long, relaxing vacation.

Not flippant.

People like this should be lit on fire in the public square to warn against others following their path.

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

#87

Post by LinuxBender »

Is this not a risky precedent to have in a legal system?

If John Q. Public know they will have to jump through legal hoops any time someone makes a claim against them, will this not encourage some folks to take the law into their own hands, thus encouraging actual damages vs. claimed?

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

#88

Post by CIPHERSTONE »

It might be easier to state that you are selling your time and not the item, the item is a free gift you are giving to the person that you agree to meet with for your time.

"Oh you like this printer? Well the printer is free, but if you want it, you have to pay me $40 for 1 second of my time."

You meet, say hello. Collect $40. Give the free printer.

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

#89

Post by maxxxxx »

MarlonPro wrote: post #8

I remember what a lawyer said in a case that I served as juror, "the US justice system is not perfect but it's the best justice system in the world."

Reflexively saying "The US has the best everything in the world" is what will bring it down eventually. There are plenty of areas the US is way behind.
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