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Comment by binarymax | Hacker News Reader

They could sue for damages beyond the means of the defendant. Then the defendant would need to hire expensive lawyers. You either lose the case and are bankrupt due to damages, or you run out of money spent on counsel.

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Pardon me if this is different in the states, but in a number of EU countries you're entitled to a state-sponsored lawyer if you're at a threat of being unable to defend your rights simply because of financial means. This generally only applies when you're the one who is sued, plus caveats depending on the jurisdiction.

The US provides this (in theory; public defenders are often overloaded and underfunded) for criminal cases, but not for civil or immigration ones.

Indeed, often in the US you could do better without the public defender. Many public defenders push their clients into plea deals despite innocence to save time.

To be clear, that's not the defenders' fault.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/01/31/us/public-def...

> Now, reformers are using data in a novel attempt to create such a standard. The studies they have produced so far, in four states, say that public defenders have two to almost five times as many cases as they should.

> The bottom line: Mr. Talaska would have needed almost 10,000 hours, or five work-years, to handle the 194 active felony cases he had as of that April day, not to mention the dozens more he would be assigned that year. (The analysis did not include one death-penalty case on his roster, the most time-consuming type of case.)

According to the European e-Justice Portal [1], the right to legal aid is contained in art 6(3)(c) of the ECHR and art 47 of the CFR. However, the first right only applies in criminal cases and the second right is limited 'in so far as such aid is necessary to ensure effective access to justice.' Apparently, 'the broad objective in some States seems to be to make legal services and access to justice generally available, whereas in others, legal aid can be available only to the very poorest.'

Based on that summary, it seems like the position in most of the EU is probably much the same as the common law world (US/UK/CA/AU/NZ): you'll probably get legal aid if you're destitute and facing potential imprisonment, but you're unlikely to get legal aid to defend a copyright infringement case, especially if your net assets are non-zero and you can easily make the case go away by just removing some web links. That may mean that you are thereby deprived of your rights, if your legal argument is correct, but resource-starved legal aid bodies will prioritise cases that involve a smaller chance of someone being wrongfully convicted.

[1] https://e-justice.europa.eu/content_legal_aid-55-en.do

I don't see how you went from "some states make legal services generally available, while others make it available to only the poorest" to "in most of the EU you'll probably get legal aid only if you're destitute". I appreciate the reference, but I don't agree with your conclusion.

My conclusion was based on the fact that this is how it works in the common law world, and the letter of the law in the EU is pretty much the same. It might be incorrect. I was hoping someone from the EU would provide more information if so.

This is not nearly as obvious as you make it sound. They'll need to at least have a somewhat legitimate sounding cause of action for this to work.

When it comes to matters of technology, that burden is exceedingly low. Especially considering you are statistically unlikely to get a judge that has a clue about what is going on.

That's not a high bar to meet when you seriously start considering building a defense at $400-$600/hour.

I took a small court case almost to trial, eventually settling out of court. My lawyers got over $100k.

At a guess you've never taken a case to court. $100K is low; and that's if you win. Never mind being awarded costs because then suddenly it turns out the court believes your lawyers worked for 10% or so of what they invoiced you.

But can't anybody sue anyone for anything anytime? Does that mean anybody can bankrupt anyone at will?

As far as I know, being bankrupt means you owe someone more money then you have.

At what point does this situation occur?

I would think at first a court needs to accept the plaint and order him to write a rebuttal or to appear in front of the court or something? I wonder what exactly would happen.

Anyone with enough money can bankrupt anyone with a sufficiently lower amount of money at will.

They are called class action lawsuits. And lawyers wield them like blazing hammers. Basically, corporation A doesn’t like what you are doing so they speak to a lawyer. The lawyer puts out advertisements on busses and craigslist to find people to join the “class.” And once they have enough info they can turn the “class” into millions of people. Now you are facing lawsuit with payout in the tens or hundreds of millions. And you have to fight it and it is extremely expensive. Then at the end of the day you have spent a boat load of money and settle and the lawyer pockets 4% which is usually several million dollars. Then you wait until the next class action comes around. And thats what owning a company in the United States is like.

It may be a sometimes-abused legal tactic, but you seem to have described an effective consumer protection system. How else would you defend everyday people from regular corporate civil lawbreaking?

I’ll concede that point in that the very threat of a class action is enough to keep most companies in line. But look at the Experian thing. A lifetime of threat for the people who had data exposed, a payout in the range of cents per person, and then lawyers pocketing millions of dollars. And Experian walks away with essentially no lasting effects. It’s just very frustrating.

Elsevier would not be filing a class-action lawsuit in this case. Just a normal lawsuit, in which the plaintiff would be Elsevier, who has an interest in protecting its intellectual property or intellectual property it has an exclusive license to.

Nah what will happen is Elservier will find all the other corporate entities that are also being linked to. Their lawyers will say these companies are “similarly situated” and seek to form a class. The class will end up being literally anyone who has their content being linked to. Then their lawyers will file motions of discovery. Those motions will seek every single piece of information conceivable in regards to how the information was linked. Computer make and model. Software installed. Who did it when where why and how. It’ll be a flood of paperwork. That’s how all major companies operate.

My impression is that almost all class actions are filed by individuals on behalf of classes consisting primarily of individuals rather than companies. I'd be curious to see if you have a counterexample of companies abusing the class action process as plaintiffs.

Example? This seems a very unusual scenario for a class action lawsuit to me, I can't think of a comparable example, involving corporations forming a class like this.

I don't think "That’s how all major companies operate," but if it is, it should be easy for you to find an example of a class action lawsuit like this?

(I agree that harrasment lawsuits where it is very expensive to defend regardless of your chances of victory -- are how all companies with enough money to do it operate. Just without the class action component).

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