"rjack" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
amicus_curious wrote:
"Linonut" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Then why did they bother? And, if SFLC was at such a disadvantage, why
wouldn't big ol' Verizon just go ahead and let little ol' SFLC take its
beating in court?
They couldn't object to a voluntary dismissal. That is an action in
their favor. They could countersue in some way, perhaps, but the SFLC is
just a flea and Verizon has a lot more to do than worry about something
like that after it has gone away anyway.
Here's why Andersen and Landley committed legal suicide:
A voluntary dismissal with predjudice is res judicata and a basis for
future collateral estoppel claims:
"A voluntary dismissal with prejudice operates as a final adjudication on
the merits and has a res judicata effect. Harrison v. Edison Bros. Apparel
Stores, Inc., 924 F.2d 530, 534 (4th Cir. 1991) (concluding that a
voluntary dismissal with prejudice 'is a complete adjudication on the
merits of the dismissed claim.')"; The Travelers Insurance Company v.
AlliedSignal TBS Holdings, 2001 FED App. 0357P (6th Cir.)
Under the doctrine of collateral estoppel the BusyBox plaintiffs probably
cannot bring a similar suit against any future defendants:
“Under res judicata, a final judgment on the merits of an action precludes
the parties or their privies from relitigating issues that were or could
have been raised in that action. Under collateral estoppel, once a court
has decided an issue of fact or law necessary to its judgment, that
decision may preclude relitigation of the issue in a suit on a different
cause of action involving a party to the first case.”; San Remo Hotel v.
San Francisco, 545 U.S. 323 (2005), fn. 16.
The only thing that may be wrong with this is the fact that the court never
actually decided the issue, which limits the res judicata argument.
Certainly they cannot ever re-litigate against Verizon on any similar issue,
say using some other company's product the same way as the Accutec device.
Whether or not they could sue, say, ATT for the same issue, even using
Accutec stuff, isn't clear to me. Presumably "once bitten, twice shy" would
apply though and they will probably go off to fish in another part of the
lake.
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