Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by smsm42 | Hacker News Reader

AFAIK small claims court are pretty informal, and most do not allow one to be represented (as opposed to advised, which is allowed) by a lawyer. So I imagine you come to the court, and the judge asks you "OK, tell me why you are suing Equifax", and you, being true to the promise to tell the truth and fearing perjury, answer "I've read an ad from a law firm which promised me that I can sue them for free and get money from it, so that's the reason I am here in the court today - just trying to grab some money from this opportunity". I would be surprised if the judge would be overly sympathetic. [1]

And since judges probably have seen pretty much everything under the sun, they probably would get the gist of it even if you don't answer in these exact words. And I am not sure judges would also be sympathetic to "auto-lawsuit" setups where you are allowed t generate lawsuit by filling a form without anybody actually ensuring there's a case. And Legalist seems to be advertising "automatic" support - i.e. without even considering if you actually have the case or not. It's basically automatic lawsuit generator. I don't think it'd make judges happy.

Lawsuit financing may be a great idea - I actually like this approach - but turning it into opportunistic money-grabbing mill is probably makes more harm than good.

[1] If you don't believe people really answer like that, check this out: https://wlflegalpulse.com/2017/08/18/food-court-follies-frau...

That may be a truth, but it's not the truth and not an answer to the question the judge is actually asking. He'd be probing about the legal basis of the claim, not the impetus that drug you out of bed and into the courtroom on that particular day.

That's for sure why people participate in class-action lawsuits against big companies like Red Bull, but isn't the whole point that people have had their privacy violated? I can't see a plaintiff showing up to court and not saying something along the lines of "Equifax lost my data and I want to be compensated."

Maybe Plaintiff John Doe isn't going to be able to exhaustively demonstrate quantifiable material damages, but maybe the court hands out a default judgment.

The real opportunistic money-grabbers here are Equifax...they took their own data breach, which is basically historically unprecedented in its scale, and used it as a way to shill one of their own credit score monitoring products. That, IMO, is despicable. If it's easier to sue these guys for their negligence, so be it.

> the whole point that people have had their privacy violated?

Possibly, but lawsuits don't work that way - "I feel bad because somebody may potentially have got my info" is not a claim you can make and get damages. There should be legal basis. Now, I'm not a lawyer, and saying US law and caselaw is huge and full of terrors would be an understatement. So maybe one could find some law that justifies it. No idea. But showing up in court and saying "but privacy, your honor!" probably don't work.

> Equifax lost my data and I want to be compensated.

And I want to be a well-hung billionaire with wings. [1] Nobody cares.

> The real opportunistic money-grabbers here are Equifax

There's a lot to be claimed against Equifax. But Equifax being crappy doesn't automatically grant you a victory in court. You have to make a valid legal claim. Granted, small claims courts, as I said, are less formal and allow you more leeway, but even then I doubt that just showing up with script-generated claim and "I feel bad, I want money" would go very well. You are welcome to try and report of course, maybe I'm an idiot and you'd be laughing all the way to the bank instead.

[1] if you recognized the quote, you get 20 bonus points

Oh god I hate the Big Bang Theory.

Fair points on the issues of standing — I would assume that a college-educated person with a decent understanding of the relevant case law (gleaned from some of the links below and other MSM articles about the data breach) could stand a decent chance of winning in court. Your mileage may vary, but if a 5 hour time investment could possibly yield a 4-figure settlement, I don't see a problem with filing a case and the worst-case scenario being a loss in court. That being said, since your chances of winning likely increase with how much effort you put into the claim, it's not Legalist that's doing the heavy lifting for you, which also begs the question of why you'd have them file for you in the first place.

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