I think you could forgive people for thinking so, in a society where people get sent to prison for decades on the subjective read of technicalities (and subsequently released early when advocacy bashes the government's head against its own injustice for long enough; of course, at that point, the judge is retired or dead and the prosecutor has had a long, successful career, so everyone wins! /s).

Same for contracts where the written language is absurd, and the agreement one party claims without the necessary evidence is way more reasonable, and the court finds in favor of the absurd contract.

Not a decimal point, but the courts have shown deference to a comma (or lack there of in the case below) and has resulted in companies paying millions…

https://lawfold.com/oxford-comma-lawsuit/

Yes, it’s going to be a super fact-specific ruling in each case because what you’re trying to determine generally is what was actually agreed. (There are exceptions to this where what was written will have heavier or lighter weight.) Here though it seems like everyone at the time agreed one thing and wrote another. I’d be shocked if somehow this got the author rich even without time barring.

Completely irrelevant to this case. That's about grammar and punctuation; this is about an accounting error expressed in English.

This isn't an "obvious" clerical mistake though. It's common for option schedules to be unique. I could absolutely see a person whose work is supposed to go on for about a year being given a schedule commensurate with that timeline.

As for sitting on it for 30 years. Lawyers are expensive - more than the cost to resolve the issue 30 years ago, but given the recent stock climb, it's now more than worth it.

I would have sued.

I could buy it if the author had been stewing on this the whole time but never engaged a lawyer because lawyers are expensive. But the post makes it clear that he didn't notice what the document said until 2024. Both sides clearly thought it was meant to be "years" at the time it was signed.

Yes, the last part is the critical piece. It could have been a one-sided error, but actually everyone thought they were signing the same erroneous thing. There's nothing here.

>Both sides clearly thought it was meant to be "years" at the time it was signed.

That'd be the thing to prove, and it's not as cut and dried when the documentation and one of the parties both say otherwise.

It’s easy to prove for the author, there’s this whole post saying they didn’t realize it was quarters until decades after the fact.

This is a little different though. The intent was for that amount of shares. So the amount isn't in question, just the vesting schedule. While the schedule may be non-standard, it isn't beyond belief (like 4 days). Also, years to quarters isn't a single typo like punctuation.

No that’s just an example. Like I said, facts were unclear here but it seems like they had agreed something and then written down something different. Courts will often find a way to respect the first unless there was a real ambiguity.

But, he didn't dispute it at the time indicating the meeting of the minds was for the 4 year, not 4 quarter, schedule. Now, is that iron clad? no, but it goes to show this is not nearly open and shut because it's more "deliberately" wrong than a misplaced decimal