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Comment by dekhn | Hacker News Reader

By "doesn't have a choice" I'm not sure what you mean. Certainly their lawyers could have chosen not to appeal upon reasonable grounds ("we're likely to lose, and that will cause greater fines").

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Any defendant assessed a 36MM penalty is going to appeal, to the limit of their ability to appeal, as is their right. Gibson's is going to get 36MM, and they can wait a little while to get it.

If you read the article their appeal to the state supreme court actually increased the judgement from $31 million to $36 million, so continuing to appeal may have been a poor choice.

I wonder if you could borrow against it. 36MM in the future is a nice thing but doesn't pay your bills today.

Yes you can! Back in the day there was a very famous company that advertised 24/7 to do just that![1]

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J.G._Wentworth

Not quite. That was for structured settlements where the defendant had already agreed to the terms and started paying. The parent was talking about borrowing against a pending matter that hasn’t yet settled.

i’m sure there’s some company that would feel confident in their math and stats to pay out x million to the defendant immediately, rather than 36m, in exchange for having the rights to the claim/pending payment assigned to them?

the only real question is how much lower x million is from 36m.

I agree, I was only speaking to whether JG Wentworth is such a company. It is not.

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