wrongkey:
I'd bet the lawyers who were giving Abyss such a hard time had a contingent fee arrangement, were never paid a dime for the hundreds or thousands of hours they spent on the case, and lost every penny they invested in trying to develop it. It wouldn't take many cases like that to land them in bankruptcy court, too. And no, I'm not defending what they did at any stage. From the report, it looks clear that they were scumbags, but we only have one side presented. Your comments, though, are superficial and wrong.
I guess the thought that there might be such a thing as a frivolous defense to a highly meritorious claim has never crossed your mind, has it? I guess it's never occurred to you, either, that a corporate defendant might pursue a defense strategy of making the prosecution of a meritorious claim so burdensome and expensive that it's not economically feasible.
By the way, ever heard of the Ford Pinto?
The Case of Graham Vs. Abysmal Diving Inc. was a sham from the outset.
A lawsuit was filed against Abysmal Diving Inc. claiming the Explorer Superflow regulator was the cause of this diver suddenly racing to the surface and ultimately getting decompression sickness so severe he had major complications that altered his lifestyle. Now comes the fun. Armed with the best legal team the business has to offer Abyss heads to a test facility to try and reproduce what the plaintiff claims the product did to him. After months of exhaustive testing, the results are clear. There is just nothing wrong with the product itself, but only with the user.
Days of interrogatories, depositions from both Parrett, Silverstein, the Plaintiff and stacks upon stacks of documents from expert witnesses costing over $500 an hour show that there is nothing wrong with the product but that the Plaintiff failed to adequately read the instruction manual. Meanwhile Abyss lost its prime regulator product (Kirby Morgan cancelled the OEM agreement), legal fees were mounting by the day, and the Plantiff had an attorney trying to dig under every corner of the company to find where the money would be to pay his client should he win. Little did they know that any cash Abyss had was already being sucked up by his clients lawsuit.
The Plantiff had a history of "blowing off" decompression stops whenever he felt like it. He did the exact same clown act during his trimix course. It was almost comical to read the accident report from an incident 2 years prior to the incident where he alleged product defect. If you didnt look at the dates they could have been the same documents.
The plantiff admits during deposition and during the trial that he "made mistakes" that it was "his fault" that he "knew he had screwed up'"
He was an airtraffic controller who workd part time at a dive shop to get gear at a discount. He testifies that he was a "trained regulator technician" and then admits that "he never read the manual" it got funny.
Nevertheless, it cost Abysmal Diving Inc. and Kirby Morgan a huge amount of money to defend this frivious case. So much so that it was contributory to putting Abyss out of business.
Divers need to accept responsiblity for thier actions. But we know they wont so we as manufacturers, distributors and retailers have to insulate ourselves as much as possible so that when we get sued we can at least be able to keep some of what we have. My ex partner pretty much lost everything when he put Abyss in to Chapter 7.
The Plantiff's laywer did work contingentcy basis. Frankly the fact that he lost was just wonderful. The scumsucking maggot he was deserved to lose every cent he spent on this frivilous case. Even though he was a VERY high profile ambulance chaser in Minneapolis he forgot one important thing. Make sure your client is not full of crap. This was a HUGE lawfirm with very deep pockets and the ability to spend like there was no tomorrow. They firmly thought that the fact that they had a client in a wheelchair would assure a victory and a large cash settlement from a jury.
I recall from my days there for depositions the Plantiff's attorney said something off record to the effect of........ " boy i wish this was a little girl and a bus." While we were all very cordial when we were together he knew he was in an area that his expertise was just not sufficient and i belive he knew his client was just a fraud.
They were NOT happy about the verdict.
If you think I am a bit "angry" over this, you bet I am. I spent 4 years building a good company with excellent products only to have this moron waste it. And while it was nice to know that the jury came back with "no neglegence" we do not have a process in this country to slap the crap out of the Plantiff for wasting everyones time and money.
Anyone can sue anyone else for any reason.
And that forces you to defend yourself, and start spending money.
And in our case, it was LOTS of money.
Regards,
Joel Silverstein, used to be with Abyss.
