I fought Equifax's lawyers in court and won: Part 2
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Equifax demands money to avoid punishing us when banks are defrauded through their own incompetence.
This is worse, because Equifax aided the criminals, but we were always getting screwed over.
You loaned money to someone and didn't even have their correct identifying information. Well that's a bit of a problem for you. You say that the fraudster used my name and other info to impersonate me. I can see you are in a bit of a pickle in how to get your money back. You are going to lie and say I defaulted on your loan to a credit bureau? Fuck you, asshole. I'm going to call the police and you are going to get a big fine and/or go to jail.
One can dream, anyway.
I recently read "A Man for All Markets" by Edward O. Thorp and it opened my eyes to the level of corruption practiced by Financial Institutions.
I find India incredibly corrupt but now I think America is not far behind. Only reason financial crimes in America does not come to light is because they are legitimatized by completely twisting the Laws to favor the right set of people.
Case in point is Mr. Trump who has declared bankruptcy multiple times without having any impact on his personal worth. This is just nuts.
So... if that weren't possible, how do you think it would affect the rate at which businesses are created? Let's say you want to start a business, but if you hit hard times and need to fold, you are _personally_ liable for any debt? Would you start that business, knowing that your financial life could easily be destroyed for the next 30 years? If you _did_ decide to start that business, do you think you'd want to grow at anything more than a snail's pace (if at all)?
I am not saying personal financial position should be destroyed but if you are a multimillionaire already why your failures should be outsourced to society?
And as far as growth is concerned, what's wrong with growing slowly? Cancer too is growth, it's just uncontrolled.
Coming to Trump, he repeatedly failed doing the same type of business.
According to this Washington Post article, he filed for Chapter 11 a number of times. You argue that being super rich doesn’t count as failing, quite from the article “Trump Hotels and Casinos Resorts filed for bankruptcy again in 2004, after accruing about $1.8 billion in debt.“, which sounds like a failure to me. Trump seems to be good at wiping out other people’s money while protecting his own.
> The New York Times, which conducted an analysis of regulatory reviews, court records and security filings, found otherwise, however. It reported in 2016 that Trump "put up little of his own money, shifted personal debts to the casinos and collected millions of dollars in salary, bonuses and other payments."
"The burden of his failures," according to the newspaper, "fell on investors and others who had bet on his business acumen."
[1] https://www.thoughtco.com/donald-trump-business-bankruptcies...
And he did not fail trying to cure cancer he was trying to run casino and resort businesses.
Looking in more detail, it seems his companies have gone bankrupt 6 times[1] but he currently controls more than 500 companies[2] (Which is a bit strange. I would think he should have a lot more bankrupt companies if he is controlling 500 at the moment.) Maybe he is a better than average business man after all.
[1] http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/jun/... [2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trump_Organization
Damnit.
I have to admit to not caring so much about the Equifax breach. I, personally, don't really care about that kind of data being public and I relentlessly monitor my credit report for changes, even if someone did abuse my data, I would know quickly and clean it up before it happened.
But I've been getting a literally 100x-fold increase in spam calls in the past few months. I have gone from one every few days to, I kid you not, 20+/day sometimes. If this is even remotely related to the Equifax breach I legitimately want to sue them just for that.
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?
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't know the rules either, and just sided with the sympathetic plaintiff?
This loss is a huge embarrassment to the lawyer and his firm. The billings for this case are negligible compared to what Equifax pays to their outside law firm every year. But mostly, this is just embarrassing. He might lose the client, and he'll definitely be mocked by colleagues for years.
It's not about the money. It's about sending a message.
Perhaps the attorney thought they could befuddle both the author and the judge.
>“You’ll follow the rules and procedures, right?” he demanded, before signing the stipulation.
>The judge, a lady with all white hair, nodded mildly. “Yes, I follow all the rules of evidence.”
Yea, my guess is that the attorney figured he could bully through and scare either the author or the judge.
It might also just be an attempt at psychological warfare. For an amateur to be confronted with stuff like this got to be very stressful. Therefore reducing likelihood of the plaintiff making a good case.
But it might just end up pissing off the judge.
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 say this is a win for the US legal system. It shows you don't have to be a well-funded professional litigator to get access to justice.
They sent a lawyer from their legal team to the initial hearing. I presented a lot of the similar arguments that were presented here, but the judge denied my claim based on not being able to prove negligence on the part of Equifax.
That's not correct. Outcomes will vary per jurisdiction, judge, and the actual case circumstances.
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.
It's not inconceivable they could make further trouble nevertheless: https://law.justia.com/cases/california/court-of-appeal/3d/1...
The relevant part appears to be:
"The Eloby court's dictum suggests that section 117.12 was designed to preclude only appeal, motions for new trial, and motions to vacate judgment. The court's initial issuance of the alternative writ further suggests that section 117.12 was not read as curtailing the ability of appellate courts to review important issues arising in small claim actions.
Following the lead of the Eloby court, we read section 117.12 as not foreclosing appellate court review by extraordinary writ. Since statewide precedents can only be created by appellate courts, jurisdiction to decide appropriate small claims court issues must be retained by appellate courts in order to secure uniformity in the operations of the small claims courts and uniform interpretation of the statutes governing them. We do not believe that the Legislature intended to make all actions of the superior courts in such cases totally unreviewable or reviewable only on certification. (Code Civ.Proc., s 911; Cal.Rules of Court, rule 61(b).) "
This seems a bit weird.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/17/patrick-rodgers-fo...
I'm surprised at how so many small-claim case victors sell their judgement to a collections firm for a fraction of its true value when collecting money is a lot easier and straight-forward than people imagine. You only need to go to a collections company if it isn't worth your time - not if the debtor isn't cooperative.
I have a question - does this become part of caselaw then for this jurisdiction? Is this now precedent for others who want to sue Equifax for being victim of the same data breach?
The author himself mention caselaw that he used as reference. If a resident from the same court jurisdiction with the same circumstances(Equifax data breach victim) why would the facts be different beside the identify of the plaintiff?
Binding precedent typically comes from a court to which an appeal would lie. So if the US Supreme Court were to decide (for example) that Uber drivers are actually employees for the purpose of federal labor law and tax withholding, then that precedent would be binding on all Federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, and also all Federal District Courts.
This same precedent would be only persuasive authority if cited in a state court proceeding regarding whether Uber drivers can claim state-mandated benefits conferred to employees (because the test for "what constitutes an employee" for the purpose of the state law could be different than the federal definition.
But some opinions are designated as non-precedential or non-published. These are still "published" in the sense that you can find them in legal research databases, but they shouldn't typically be cited in future cases. I don't know the rules for the jurisdiction where this case took place, but I would be surprised if small claims cases decided by pro tem judges (who are neither appointed nor elected) were considered precedential.
Of course, you could always mention this case if you're fighting a similar case in small claims court (where procedural rules are relaxed). But don't expect a judge to follow the prior decision, even if your facts are pretty close to his facts.
> why would the facts be different beside the identify of the plaintiff?
Because the number of phone calls and other facts would vary from person to person. The legal issues could be the same, but the facts would differ in every case.
Background: I used to be a corporate lawyer, but I did not specialize in litigation.