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I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

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Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#41

Post by [deleted] »

Meekro wrote: post #11
plorkyeran wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring a $1000/hour lawyer for your small claims case is like hiring an airplane mechanic to work on your car. There's a pretty good chance that this is the first time Equifax's lawyer had ever been involved in a small claims case.

Any lawyer worth his salt would know that each court has its own particular rules of procedure. If your highly-paid lawyer comes into bankruptcy court and starts trying to invoke procedural rules from juvenile court, that would be pretty convincing evidence of incompetence. So did this lawyer take on a small claims case without realizing that they should probably read up on small claims rules? Or maybe the judge didn…

[deleted]

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#42

Post by IncRnd »

bitmapbrother wrote: post #14

Imagine having to explain to Equifax how your high powered legal team lost a small claims court case to a guy with no law degree.

Equifax already knows they were in the wrong and are just trying to stop the liability. The big wig lawyer vs yokel scenario doesn't really fit here.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#43

Post by manigandham »

Meekro wrote: post #5

I'm as glad as anyone else to see Equifax getting what's due to them, but is anyone else bothered by the surreal quality to this story? It sounds like the rules and procedures being applied were vastly different than what Equifax's highly paid lawyer expected. Is their $1000-an-hour lawyer just incompetent, or is the pro tem judge here allowed to make up the rules as she goes along?

It's definitely not incompetence. Lawyers at that level know what they're doing. This is just a strategy to rattle the opposition (and the judge). It usually works unless you're prepared or in higher courts with more formality and experience in the room.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#44

Post by jjeaff »

Meekro wrote: post #11
plorkyeran wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hiring a $1000/hour lawyer for your small claims case is like hiring an airplane mechanic to work on your car. There's a pretty good chance that this is the first time Equifax's lawyer had ever been involved in a small claims case.

Any lawyer worth his salt would know that each court has its own particular rules of procedure. If your highly-paid lawyer comes into bankruptcy court and starts trying to invoke procedural rules from juvenile court, that would be pretty convincing evidence of incompetence. So did this lawyer take on a small claims case without realizing that they should probably read up on small claims rules? Or maybe the judge didn…

You would think so. But I have made plenty of corrections on documents supposedly prepared by our $800 an hour lawyer.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#45

Post by DanBC »

g051051 wrote: post #21
iloveluce wrote: post #3

Here is the HN discussion to Part 1 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16217241 Pretty surprised how much Equifax spent trying to win this case. I'm sure they're doing it to dissuade others from suing them as well but after reading this I really want to sue myself. I wonder if they'll appeal the verdict again.

They probably don't care about the cost, it's the precedent they're trying to block or overturn. And I don't see how even the appeal can stand against further appeals (or whatever they do next to protest what they consider an invalid ruling).

Do small claims cases create precedent?

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#46

Post by jjeaff »

sverhagen wrote: post #38
darepublic wrote: post #37

Nice, but this needs to be scaled up (many more people need to do this, and a clear recipe provided)

Isn't there a class action to that effect?

Literally millions of individual cases would be much better. It would overwhelm them and those suing would likely get way more money. Class actions never amount to much for anybody except the attorneys.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#47

Post by nwatson »

hyperbole wrote: post #23

Equifax is yet another form of financial corruption. The charge/fee incurred in freezing your credit is so close to a shakedown - this is absurd. Credit ratings of the population are a product they sell to financial firms and then they charge (read shakedown) that population for pausing the sale of that data so you the consumer can prevent irreparable credit harm. Then when they screw up and allow a leak of your data…

Fortunately some states like North Carolina force credit bureaus to let consumers freeze credit reports for no fees. I froze our family credit with the big three and it didn't take long (one bureau required me too register an online account) and now am finalizing Innovis freeze too.

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#48

Post by [deleted] »

avinium wrote: post #27
Meekro wrote: post #5

I'm as glad as anyone else to see Equifax getting what's due to them, but is anyone else bothered by the surreal quality to this story? It sounds like the rules and procedures being applied were vastly different than what Equifax's highly paid lawyer expected. Is their $1000-an-hour lawyer just incompetent, or is the pro tem judge here allowed to make up the rules as she goes along?

> Is their $1000-an-hour lawyer just incompetent, or is the pro tem judge here allowed to make up the rules as she goes along? Neither. It's just typical corporate lawyer arrogance in trying to bully and bluff someone into submission. It really only works on complete amateurs. Given this guy is running a company whose sole purpose is to finance claims against Equifax, he knows how to deal with them. All in all,I'd sa…

[deleted]

Re: I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2

#49

Post by g051051 »

DanBC wrote: post #45
g051051 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They probably don't care about the cost, it's the precedent they're trying to block or overturn. And I don't see how even the appeal can stand against further appeals (or whatever they do next to protest what they consider an invalid ruling).

Do small claims cases create precedent?

IANAL, so it may not be "Precedent" with a capital P, but it is a court ruling and the guy put a huge amount of crazy stuff into it that other crazies can now point to and say "see, a judge agreed with all of this".
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