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Comment by Someone1234 | Hacker News Reader

Title:

> U.S. Judge Orders “Immediate Removal” of Website Critical of Voice Lie Detector

It was a default judgement, the judge didn't "order" anything. If the other side fails to answer the case at all ("Dektor has not timely responded to either motion."[0]), the judge simply grants the claimant what they asked for.

You can apply to vacate a default judgement and get your day in court, but that requires you to take part in proceedings. It should also be noted that "Arthur Herring III" of Dektor has an interest history (just google it, I see multiple unrelated news articles/lawsuits), and that both sides are selling voice "lie detectors."

[0] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.flsd.532237...

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The title is misleading but after reading the court order you posted, this still seems odd. I'm not defending anyone involved in this, honestly both Dektor and NITV seem sketchy but this is a civil judgement against a company in a different state. Maybe some HN legal wonks can weigh in on this and explain it but I don't see how a state civil court has the authority to remove a website that's clearly outside of state jurisdiction and not involved in a criminal proceeding. If it were a violation of the law it would fall under federal jurisdiction. If the civil judge determined that the website itself was in violation of the law then it should be referred to the relevant federal agencies for a criminal investigation.

Default judgements are not as simple as you disingenuously claim.

"Answering the case" = paying a lawyer at least a low five figure USD retainer to write a ~20 page document, 15 of which is a template, and then show up in court on your behalf.

No money, no justice, unless you successfully beg for probono work (ie: find a lawyer willing to volunteer).

You didn't refute anything I posted, just posted an unrelated point while calling my post "disingenuous" for no clear reason.

One of the sides didn't turn up at all, nor write a response, after having been served. Lawsuits being expensive is a valid point, but it is an separate point than what I posted about above.

You didn't refute anything I said, either ;-)

The sad truth is that medium and large enterprises can use the crushing burden of legal costs to impose their will upon the little guy. Said little guy has to make a decision when they get sued: a.) get a second mortgage to pay the lawyers; b.) grovel: "please sir, let me go, I'll stop saying mean things about you, even if they are true"; or c.) pretend it doesn't exist. Default judgements are generally people irrationally opting for option c.

This is just like an engineer saying "I could replicate this product in in a weekend", knowing full well that it would take a team of 10 a year to do so at a fully-loaded cost of a few million dollars.

IMHO this is a spat between two quacks (you devoted the last sentence of your comment to this), one with slightly more money than the other (you failed to mention this, and it's significance, which is why I brought it up). Guess which quack will prevail.

> You didn't refute anything I said, either ;-)

I also didn't insult you, your post, or call it out. I actually said you made a valid point, apples and oranges to what you did above.

My whole point is that they are apples to apples. It is not possible, and dare I repeat, disingenuous, to divorce legal outcomes from their monetary costs.

Update: IMHO, every legal case should publish, at every document submitted to court, their billable costs to date so as to color the historical public record.

> This is just like an engineer saying "I could replicate this product in in a weekend"

It takes a year to prepare for doing something in a weekend. But if you already have the right experience for free because you did adjacent tasks, some seemingly complicated tasks can be done real quick.

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