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Muir posted:Depending on your jurisdiction you might not be able to recover legal fees even if you win. So you may spend 4 figures in lawyer bills to recover 4 figures in damages. I guess you could try small claims court. e.g., Oklahoma: 3-10 times actual damage plus costs and attorneys fees. Also, potentially a felony if worth more than $200
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Dec 2, 2022 22:23
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If the trees were cut down in order to, say, improve the view from the neighbor’s house, could they sue for punitive damages as well?
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Dec 3, 2022 01:35
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I had a similar situation with my neighbor. He had a row of arborvitaes planted on the property line and they were overhanging my yard by quite a bit and killing all the grass making my yard look like something out of the Addams family. He eventually cut them down with the intention of replacing them with more arborvitaes, but moving them back 10 feet or so onto his property. The day came for the new trees to arrive and he asked me if the delivery guy could go through my yard to drop off the trees. I told him I didn't want a loving skid loader tearing up my yard, but I was okay with him backing up with a trailer as long as the skid loader stayed in the area that was already torn up from the old tree removal. I left town for a couple hours and came back to see a flatbed with the last tree on it parked in front of my house and the skid loader merrily cutting through my side and back yards to drop off the trees. I figured the damage was done at this point and just shook my head and went in the house. I ran into him a few days later and mentioned the condition of my yard. He told me I could just throw some grass seed on it and it would be fine. My lawn wasn't in that great of shape to begin with, so I figured it wasn't worth making an enemy out of a guy that I'm probably going to be neighbors with for 30 years so I just let it go. Evidently, he didn't have enough dirt for the trees. A few days later, I hear the beeping of truck in reverse outside my house and see a huge dump truck backing up my gravel driveway headed to cut across the concrete pad in front of my garage to access the back yard. I ran out and asked what he was doing and he told me my neighbor said it would be okay. I told him it is not okay to drive a dump truck loaded with dirt across my concrete pad and he ended up dumping the dirt in the street in front of my neighbor's house. My neighbor would rather spend 6 hours with just himself, a shovel, and a wheelbarrow to move all that dirt than to let the truck back up into his yard, but he was perfectly okay with it driving through my yard. I don't think he is intentionally being an rear end in a top hat, he just thinks on a different level than most people. During the intermission between the removal of the old trees and the planting of the new ones, we were in the backyard talking and he was trying to figure out how to plant them in a perfectly straight row. I explained to him how he could use a string line, tape measure, and some stakes to get the job done. His eyes sort of glazed over and he said, "Yeah, maybe if I had a really big level. Like one of those carpenter levels." That's my story that has nothing to do with the law or legal questions, but more to do with choosing your battles. If you take them to court over this, things may likely escalate more and it will never end until one of you moves out or dies. I still talk to my neighbor from time to time and our dogs play together in the yard. I wouldn't say that we are friends by any stretch, but I'm thankful we are not enemies.
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Dec 3, 2022 02:51
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The neighbors in the story had a tree service cut down someone else’s large trees and have not offered any kind of compensation. It was an intentional act and they are never going to be good neighbors. Best to set a boundary now by suing them.
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Dec 3, 2022 03:05
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edit: nm finally figured out the right terms to Google
SaTaMaS fucked around with this message at 23:46 on Dec 3, 2022 |
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Dec 3, 2022 22:35
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Dec 3, 2022 22:45
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Perfectly spherical tort claims in a vacuum
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Dec 3, 2022 23:43
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What was the term in contract law that someone mentioned, earlier? The one where even if both parties don't sign a contract, but they start executing the terms of the agreement as if they had, it causes the contract to effectively be "in force"?
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Dec 4, 2022 02:13
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null_pointer posted:What was the term in contract law that someone mentioned, earlier? The one where even if both parties don't sign a contract, but they start executing the terms of the agreement as if they had, it causes the contract to effectively be "in force"? https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/contract_implied_in_fact Implied in Fact Contract? quote:A contract implied in fact consists of obligations arising from a mutual agreement expressed not through words but implied through actions. To support a contract implied in fact, facts and circumstances surrounding the actions must show a mutual intent to contract. Contracts of this sort are legally enforceable and are true contracts, meaning they can supersede or modify written contracts on the same topic.
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Dec 4, 2022 05:19
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Muir posted:Using a different display method is what would get you out of the scope of the patent, not what name you use for it. What you call an in-game term like "tapping" would have no bearing on patent protection. Patents care about what you do, not what you call it. If you go around selling remdesivir, but call it something else, you're still infringing Gilead's patent. You could potentially trademark the term "tapping". Yes, it was not "hey this is all legally sound" but more "we're the biggest player in the field and we have this (possibly dubious) patent to throw around against smaller players".
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Dec 5, 2022 17:21
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Is it normal for a judge to throw out a discovery request?
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Dec 5, 2022 17:39
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Azuth0667 posted:Is it normal for a judge to throw out a discovery request? It depends on the circumstances and the arguments around it. Some discovery requests do get tossed.
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Dec 5, 2022 17:57
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Azuth0667 posted:Is it normal for a judge to throw out a discovery request? It is entirely normal if a discovery dispute gets to the point of a judge ruling on it, for the discovery request to get tossed. What makes it unusual is that typically judges make it very clear that they hate, hate, hate discovery disputes and if they have to deal with one, they will be very upset at whoever was unreasonable enough to make the judge bother with it (and may be very mad at both parties). So typically people compromise or fold before it gets to that point.
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Dec 5, 2022 17:59
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Hypothetically, if a Property Management Company had forgotten to charge a hypothetical tenant the early termination fee, would this hypothetical tenant be under an obligation to inform the company? If the apartment was hypothetically received by the company and a lease termination letter was issued, would that be enough for the company to lose any claim to the owed money? This hypothetical tenant would of course keep enough funds in the account on record in case the company decided to use any sort of ACH shenanigans to withdraw it.
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Dec 6, 2022 01:20
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evilweasel posted:It is entirely normal if a discovery dispute gets to the point of a judge ruling on it, for the discovery request to get tossed. What makes it unusual is that typically judges make it very clear that they hate, hate, hate discovery disputes and if they have to deal with one, they will be very upset at whoever was unreasonable enough to make the judge bother with it (and may be very mad at both parties). So typically people compromise or fold before it gets to that point. I see, my friend is one of our in-house counsel and was celebrating because there's some patent troll annoying us. I don't know what was in the request but from what I gather that patent troll is not allowed to file again against anyone without some sort of approval.
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Dec 6, 2022 05:15
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That’s a different situation than just a discovery request being denied. The patent troll in this case has likely been labeled as a vexatious litigant. That means that he must have special permission to file suits or discovery requests.
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Dec 6, 2022 16:08
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OMG. People please close out estates, no matter what sort of PITA it might seem to be. Because you can really leave a loving mess for others to clean up. Off now to ensure my will is ironclad and easy to find...
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Dec 6, 2022 20:24
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dpkg chopra posted:Hypothetically, if a Property Management Company had forgotten to charge a hypothetical tenant the early termination fee, would this hypothetical tenant be under an obligation to inform the company? you are likely not obligated to inform them the contract probably states that a failure to exercise a right under the contract is not a waiver of that right will it stand up in court? who knows they'll probably just send it to collections if they figure it out and you don't pay hypothetically
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Dec 6, 2022 20:36
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Bilirubin posted:OMG. People please close out estates, no matter what sort of PITA it might seem to be. Because you can really leave a loving mess for others to clean up. I hear this a lot, like it's irresponsible to not have a good will trust estate plan. However my current experience with relatives and their estate plans is, carefully planned (and done with numerous trips to the lawyer) is still an enormous messy pile of chores. Leaves me thinking it's better to dispose of everything before you die.
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Dec 6, 2022 20:36
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Also, at least in this state, once you pay the probate fees, the probate court doesn’t really care if you close out the estate in a timely manner if no one is complaining.
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Dec 6, 2022 20:50
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smackfu posted:Also, at least in this state, once you pay the probate fees, the probate court doesn’t really care if you close out the estate in a timely manner if no one is complaining. yeah and I suspect the same is the case in the jurisdiction my partner's family are now having to contend with. Its frustrating to tears and will take years to get all this sorted.
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Dec 6, 2022 20:59
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We have an estate planning thread, would it make sense to redirect estate administration/litigation chatter there as well?
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Dec 6, 2022 21:12
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Nonexistence posted:We have an estate planning thread, would it make sense to redirect estate administration/litigation chatter there as well? I was unaware, thanks for the heads up.
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Dec 6, 2022 21:24
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Are the rules for discovery different in traffic court? Say if you got ticketed for running a stop sign. Could you show up to your court date with dashcam footage proving that you stopped, or would it be inadmissible because the prosecution didn't get a chance to review it before the hearing?
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Dec 7, 2022 01:00
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Those are evidence questions not discovery questions
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Dec 7, 2022 01:15
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cool but does skunk's question have an answer or are you just categorizing questions for legal reasons
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Dec 7, 2022 01:32
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I have never practiced in traffic court so I don't know. It depends on local rules, state rules and the judge and the particular circumstances of the case.
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Dec 7, 2022 01:36
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euphronius posted:I have never practiced in traffic court so I don't know. Where’s Blarzgh? I bet he could settle this.
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Dec 7, 2022 01:41
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I'll categorize it as a good question! A lawyer (or pro se litigant) may raise an objection to the introduction of evidence he or she has never seen. Generally there are very specific rules unique to each locality and each court. Like, the rules of Wasilla, Alaska traffic court are different than Wasilla, Alaska Superior Court, and also different than Seattle, Washington traffic court. Not only do we not know the rules applicable to you, even if we did we can't give you advice on how to apply those rules to your situation. It may be that the rules of discovery (or evidence, depending on where the relevant rule is located) require the exchange of that information as an ironclad prerequisite to the evidence being admissible. I can tell you that my experience, from my time as a prosecutor, was that if we didn't give something to the defense before trial then we didn't get to use it at trial. The defense also didn't have to tell us poo poo so we were constantly surprised. That was mostly in big formal high stakes criminal litigation. I can also tell you, from my limited experience in traffic court, that usually there are no rigid rules. The judge is going to be a magistrate that has a hundred more speeding tickets to get through before tee time. So, I have seen magistrates order participants to go into the hallway and show each other their evidence, then wait back in line for their hearing. That judge might also be a super stickler for the rules (looking at you Bill) or just be a loving rear end in a top hat (looking at you John), so knowing the rules before you go to the hearing would be important. Try googling your jurisdiction and "rules of court" then finding something called traffic court procedure or district court procedure. It might be best to show up to your hearing early and let the cop or newbie prosecutor see what you have before the hearing starts. But it might not. It depends!
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Dec 7, 2022 01:47
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BigHead posted:I'll categorize it as a good question! Thanks for the thoughtful reply. This is one of those "hypothetical" questions that actually is hypothetical. Maybe my use of the word discovery was incorrect. I thought that was when all the evidence that was going to appear in court was shared between both parties. edit: I've had two speeding tickets in 30 years of driving (both were for 41 in a 30) and just paid them off, so I've never been to traffic court. As I understand it, it is just you, the cop, and the judge. So, does the cop act as the litigant in traffic court where I assume it is the state/county/city vs. the defendant? Skunkduster fucked around with this message at 01:56 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 01:51
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SkunkDuster posted:Thanks for the thoughtful reply. This is one of those "hypothetical" questions that actually is hypothetical. Maybe my use of the word discovery was incorrect. I thought that was when all the evidence that was going to appear in court was shared between both parties. Depends on the locality. Where I was a prosecutor the cops did their own tickets. The only exception (and the only times I've ever done anything there) was when the cop had a sovereign citizen or some other person who was making court uncomfortable for the cop. I've heard of other localities where the prosecutor shows up to all contested tickets.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:06
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SkunkDuster posted:Thanks for the thoughtful reply. This is one of those "hypothetical" questions that actually is hypothetical. Maybe my use of the word discovery was incorrect. I thought that was when all the evidence that was going to appear in court was shared between both parties. you were right and euphonious was wrong: the evidence (if excluded) would be excluded as a sanction for discovery rule violations in the question you asked, not because of evidentiary rules my expectation is there's no discovery rules in most traffic courts
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Dec 7, 2022 02:07
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I used a subtle weasel phrase to not be wrong.
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Dec 7, 2022 03:15
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euphronius posted:I used a subtle weasel phrase to not be wrong. Yes, yes, you're a good lawyer, we get it.
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Dec 7, 2022 08:24
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therobit posted:Where’s Blarzgh? I bet he could settle this. In traffic Court you probably don't have to send it to the prosecution first unles you're in some weird Court where the Judge is grumpy and decides you should have for whatever reason, but any non-rear end in a top hat judge would absolutely let exculpatory dashcam footage in (and possibly ask you why you wasted everyone's time by requesting a trial when you had clear exculpatory footage that could have saved the Court the time and hassle of empaneling a jury or whatever.) I actually had a case where this kind of happened. At pretrial the guy told me that there was no speed limit sign where he got ticketed, and so the default speed limit for that size Rd was 10 miles an hour higher than the speed limit sign said so he wouldn't have been speeding if there was no speed limit posted. On the day of trial he brought the video of him travelling down the road (after the ticket he had doubled-back and taken a video) and showing that there was no posted speed limit sign there. so we called the police chief in to see what was going on, and it turns out that the Department of Transportation was starting road construction on that stretch later that day, and had sent out an e-mail at like 10:00 o'clock AM telling PD that the speed limit sign was coming down and so the default speed limit would be 45 instead of 35 or whatever, and then another e-mail from chief to patrol officers at 10:30 AM advising them of the speed limit change. the guy got his ticket, going 45 miles an hour, at 10:15 AM. we all had a good laugh and dismissed the case.
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Dec 7, 2022 15:44
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SkunkDuster posted:Thanks for the thoughtful reply. This is one of those "hypothetical" questions that actually is hypothetical. Maybe my use of the word discovery was incorrect. I thought that was when all the evidence that was going to appear in court was shared between both parties. It depends but I believe my state is the only state where officers are still allowed to act as prosecutors on misdemeanor offenses. There are absolutely discovery rules. It depends on the theoretical maximum penalty. If the offense can result in jailtime, there are constitutional discovery requirements that must be followed. Then past that there are whatever your local state rules are. blarzgh posted:In traffic Court you probably don't have to send it to the prosecution first unles you're in some weird Court where the Judge is grumpy and decides you should have for whatever reason, but any non-rear end in a top hat judge would absolutely let exculpatory dashcam footage in (and possibly ask you why you wasted everyone's time by requesting a trial when you had clear exculpatory footage that could have saved the Court the time and hassle of empaneling a jury or whatever.). .. That's hilarious and yeah exactly how that would work. Most of the time if you can actually prove innocence it doesn't go to trial it just gets thrown out. I've never had that precise situation come up but I did get about fifty pot charges dismissed over the couple years I did traffic court because our state legalized hemp, but not pot, in 2017 or so, with the difference defined as over or under a !% THC level. Then for the next two years the cops didn't update the lab test they used, just testing for presence of THC period, not level. So for like two years there every pot charge we handled got dismissed because they were required to prove THC over1% and couldn't. Mathematically, misdemeanor traffic court charges generally aren't worth prosecuting; once someone says "i want a public defender" the state is spending more to prosecute the case than they are capable of recouping in fines. But businesses want to be able to jail people for trespassing and cops want to do searches when they "smell weed" so here we are. Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 16:02 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 15:53
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blarzgh posted:In traffic Court you probably don't have to send it to the prosecution first unles you're in some weird Court where the Judge is grumpy and decides you should have for whatever reason, but any non-rear end in a top hat judge would absolutely let exculpatory dashcam footage in (and possibly ask you why you wasted everyone's time by requesting a trial when you had clear exculpatory footage that could have saved the Court the time and hassle of empaneling a jury or whatever.) Sooo I've never had to go to traffic court. What's the alternative here? Is there a way to present this video/evidence/whatever ahead of time? Assuming someone is pro se and doesn't have a traffic attorney who chats with the prosecutor over lunch. Is there a "call the prosecutor to dispute the ticket" thing? I was always under the impression that traffic court was super informal and that there's just about nothing you can do ahead of time unless you wanted to plead guilty and pay the fines.
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Dec 7, 2022 16:21
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DaveSauce posted:Sooo I've never had to go to traffic court. What's the alternative here? Is there a way to present this video/evidence/whatever ahead of time? You show up 2 times. The first time you go and plead guilty/not guilty. Generally there first time you ask for deferred or defensive driving or whatever. If, on the first time, you plead Not Guilty, you often have a chance to go have a pretrial conference with the prosecutor, where you would show them the video. The second time you show up is for the trial. Sometimes there's a meeting in between those two. Like if you asked for pre-trial discovery or whatever or to see a copy of the State's evidence or cop's dashcam video, sometimes all three of those things happen at the same time, sometimes your police/ deferral request is done by mail only. Mail only so there's no initial plea hearing, just depends a lot. On the different courts, but those are the main components of a traffic ticket case, I'm generally this order 1) Plea 2) Request for pre-trial diversion 3) Pretrial conference 4) Request for discovery 5) Trial
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Dec 7, 2022 16:43
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Friend of mine is suing a doctor for malpractice. From what he told me, the doctor gave him at best unintentionally disastrous advice, at worst deliberately tried to disable him. Resulted in permanent, incurable, and total destruction of a key factor in basic human happiness. Doctor's lawyers found his ex-wife, who is a truly awful human being in many ways. They haven't been together in years but she is implying that she will be available to tell the court he's lying about everything unless he gives her money and gets back together with her. His lawyer now wants to settle the case immediately for much less than he thought he'd get. This seems insane to me. His ex wife is not a citizen, she's here illegally, he's had multiple orders of protection against her for stalking him. Even if this goes to court and she is there to lie and claim he's faking it, how the hell would that be credible? It's not like she'd be in a position to know about it, he left her before anything happened. Fwiw this is all second hand info, so maybe I misunderstood something. But this seems like an egregiously ridiculous outcome oliveoil fucked around with this message at 17:03 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 16:58
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When I was a kid (15 or so) I got hit by a truck while riding my bike, and they charged me with being at fault on the basis that the truck driver was the unofficial mechanic for the local police department. I don't recall many of the details any more as I am, uh, somewhat older than 15 now but I do remember the 'referee' (juvenile courts where I lived didn't get real judges I guess) writing DISMISSED across my citation in huge letters while trying very hard not to laugh.
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Dec 7, 2022 17:07
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