- Joined
- Jul 22, 2016
I agree with you that the strategy of not getting the Farms dismissed as an improper party to sue was tactical. I think the plan was to Hulk smash the entire damn thing because getting into the weeds about semantics was going to be more complex, take more time and cost more money. When all you want to do is make the annoying gnat go away you just smack it with a book, not take out the napalm or nuke it from orbit. The brevity of the filings accomplished all the tasks at once in the most cost effective matter. In the end it worked because it was right even if it glossed over glaring deficiencies that could have been exploited. You run the risk that you might not be able to go back and make the argument later, but in this case it's not something that you lose if you don't bring it up so why bother?The problem with raising that particular issue is that it's easily remediable. Null's paying for a lawyer's time and had to decide which issues are going to give the most bang for his buck. If they argue this, and win on it, Russ could simply cure the defect by simply filing an amended complaint and naming a proper defendant, and then they're right back at square one.
Hell, Russ never even attempted to serve Kiwi Farms, but that issue wasn't raised either. Even in the best case scenario where Kiwi Farms gets dismissed from the complaint, Null was still named personally. And despite the fact that Russ was trying to make Null responsible for everything on Kiwi Farms, he didn't include a conspiracy claim. If he had included conspiracy, getting Kiwi Farms dismissed from the suit might've been a strategy to defeat the conspiracy charge, since it requires multiple parties conspiring together - if Kiwi Farms was dismissed as an improper defendant, any conspiracy charge falls apart. But even then you're only defeating the conspiracy charge; it might be more strategic to go for the jugular and try to get the whole case dismissed.
As I alluded to just over 12 hours ago right before these rulings dropped, Russ really fucked himself by filing all of that frivolous shit. Copyright was by far his strongest legal claim (and I'm not even saying it was very good), but it was way, way low down on the list of his plights, so he fought all the wrong battles and argued the wrong stuff. He successfully managed to make himself look like such a frivolous lunatic that his copyright claims didn't even get much consideration.
That's true for a prima facie pleading, but eventually you're going to have to show some actual damages for the court to be able to make you whole. The idea behind it is that the damages are so obvious as to not need to be shown at the initial pleading stage of the lawsuit, but if you get to trial and can't actually show any damages, the court's not necessarily going to just hand you a thick wad of money to remedy the offense to your character.
Why pay for a fancy bejeweled ring when all you need is a plain silicone band to signify you are married? Both convey the same thing. One is just more cost effective.