Re:Bank of America trying to load up on patents for the tech...
by bryondowd on Wednesday December 30, 2015 @02:53PM
(#10813942)
I was thinking it would be effective to have a variation of your first solution. But rather than having special rules for big vs small cases, just have a rule that the instigator has to set aside money for the defendant, equal to it's own court and legal costs. Then, if they win, the defendant has to repay it (although if you are suing a tiny company, they may cease to exist after, leaving no means of collection). So, if MegaCorp sues Little Guy, Inc, and puts 5 mil into it's case, it has to stick another 5 mil into a trust account for Little Guy to use for defense. So, it better be willing to lose that much or be very certain about it's case, and Little Guy has nothing to worry about or any reason to cave unless there's a significant chance of losing, even with equal resources. Seems to me the defender should have an advantage in most cases.
I think it's a hard problem to reorganize the system to prevent big corporate bullying. I think any potential solution would be pretty sweeping.
One idea would be to require MegaCorp (defined maybe as $100m+ annual revenue) to pay the legal fees of the small defendant (defined maybe as <= $20m annual revenue). MegaCorp would have to bear this cost even if they won, meaning they could only sue little guys if it was really worth it. MegaCorp would pay the same amount they pay their attorneys into a trust managed by the court, which would allow the small defendant to select his own lawyers. This would ensure that both sides have equally-adequate representation.
A second solution is to lower the cost of litigation in general, which would be accomplished by de-formalization of the system and greater local sovereignty. Why does it have to take 10 years and $5 million to have a dispute settled? Companies are already trying to make something like this the de facto legal system by forcing arbitration against their helpless victims; arbitration might not be bad in theory, but under the current practice, it's an unnerving prospect, since you're going into a black hole.