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Brian Dunning lawsuit

Thanks for the info. As a Skeptoid subscriber, I have no plans to stop my support for the podcast. I hope you get a fair and just outcome.
 
Thank you for the time you put into the explanation. It's good to hear the other side of the story. Once again, all the best with this, I hope things work out ASAP. Looking forward to Tuesday for that skeptical goodness!
 
Has anyone heard whether or not Mr. Dunning's trial started today as scheduled?
 
Reed said:
Has anyone heard whether or not Mr. Dunning's trial started today as scheduled?
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I think that the answer to that question is almost certainly "yes.". Starting with Mr. Dunning, his lawyer, the judge . . .
 
Wondering what was happening with the case, I checked on PACER.gov and found this order from the judge:
This matter came before the Court for a status hearing on Monday, November 7, 2011. Counsel for the government and the defendant were present. Based on the hearing and at the request of the parties, the Court finds pursuant to Title 18, United States Code, Section 3161(h)(7)(A), considering the factors set forth in Section 3161(h)(7)(B), that the ends of justice served by granting this continuance outweigh the defendant’s and the public’s interests in a speedy trial inasmuch as (1) this case is so complex, due to the nature of the prosecution and the existence of novel questions of fact or law, that it is unreasonable to expect adequate preparation for pretrial proceedings or for the trial itself within the time limits established by this section and
(2) the parties need additional time for investigation and effective preparation.
IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that this case is continued to Monday, October 1, 2012 at
1:30 p.m. for a final pretrial conference and then Monday October 22, 2012 at 9:00 a.m. for trial.
IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that the period of time from November 7, 2011 through and
including October 22, 2012 shall be excluded from the period of time within which trial must commence under the Speedy Trial Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3161 et seq.
DATED:
________________________________
EDWARD J. DAVILA
United States District Judge
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So, let's all meet back here October 22, 2012, one day less than two months before the end of the world.
 
A translation: This is really new **** that we don't quite understand and has **** we had not considered because **** moves to fast and ****, so we need some time yo.
 
zooterkin said:
I don't pretend to understand exactly what they did, but this appears to give more details.

We're not talking peanuts:
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I was gonna say (as an eBay affiliate myself), there is no way Skeptoid could have made that much money and be eBay's #2 affiliate, so fraud is obvious... but then Mr. Dunning says that the cookie stuffing allegations have nothing to do with Skeptoid, so that certainly explains a lot. I'm a lot more willing to give him benefit of the doubt now. Though, I certainly wonder why eBay and the FBI would go that far in prosecuting his company if there really was nothing suspicious going on. Perhaps it wasn't done with Mr. Dunning's knowledge? In any case, good luck to him.
 
A court date a couple of weeks before the end of the world??

Given such a trial is likely to last longer than a couple of weeks, we'll NEVER hear how it turns out...

(and good luck with it all, Brian)
 
I'm not a follower of skeptoid although I've probably heard a few of their podcasts.

I've read through this thread before. I didn't quite understand what had been done or the accusations but I thought Dunning was probably guilty. An opinion formed admittedly with almost a complete lack of information other than the notion that people accused are probably guilty.

Now, I've read Dunning's response. He certainly makes it sound like he thinks he's innocent and this is all an unfortunate misunderstanding. I hope for his sake that there is enough demonstrable truth in that that he will prevail.

But a case continuance of a year? Holy cripes, just the pain of having that hanging over your head would be daunting. It just really seems like intelligent people ought to be able to hash this out without needing a trial. My guess, though, having dealt with lawyers only a bit, is that the lawyers on both sides have gone into self promotion mode in which case all sorts of questionable tactics will be used to keep the parties fully enthused with the righteousness of there positions and in need of lawyers to protect themselves from the evilness of the other side.

I hope there is some non-lawyer person at Ebay that can take an objective look at this case and see if there isn't some way out that doesn't involve enriching lawyers and possibly unfairly screwing over people.
 
davefoc said:
I'm not a follower of skeptoid although I've probably heard a few of their podcasts.

I've read through this thread before. I didn't quite understand what had been done or the accusations but I thought Dunning was probably guilty. An opinion formed admittedly with almost a complete lack of information other than the notion that people accused are probably guilty.

Now, I've read Dunning's response. He certainly makes it sound like he thinks he's innocent and this is all an unfortunate misunderstanding. I hope for his sake that there is enough demonstrable truth in that that he will prevail.

But a case continuance of a year? Holy cripes, just the pain of having that hanging over your head would be daunting. It just really seems like intelligent people ought to be able to hash this out without needing a trial. My guess, though, having dealt with lawyers only a bit, is that the lawyers on both sides have gone into self promotion mode in which case all sorts of questionable tactics will be used to keep the parties fully enthused with the righteousness of there positions and in need of lawyers to protect themselves from the evilness of the other side.

I hope there is some non-lawyer person at Ebay that can take an objective look at this case and see if there isn't some way out that doesn't involve enriching lawyers and possibly unfairly screwing over people.
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I read this, and it strikes me as being pretty much the same argument used by the alt med crowd. "You don't need a doctor to figure out what's best for you; doctors make money when you're sick, and are just promoting themselves to convince you that you need their wares! Surely we can just use some common sense and some basic 'natural' remedies to make you feel all better."
Assuming that all legal experts are self-promoting frauds, and that legal solutions can be arrived at easier without them, is just as silly as assuming all medical experts are self-promoting frauds, and you're better off treating your disease yourself.
 
AvalonXQ said:
I read this, and it strikes me as being pretty much the same argument used by the alt med crowd. "You don't need a doctor to figure out what's best for you; doctors make money when you're sick, and are just promoting themselves to convince you that you need their wares! Surely we can just use some common sense and some basic 'natural' remedies to make you feel all better."
Assuming that all legal experts are self-promoting frauds, and that legal solutions can be arrived at easier without them, is just as silly as assuming all medical experts are self-promoting frauds, and you're better off treating your disease yourself.
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There is no doubt that sometimes people need lawyers and that lawyers are an important part of the fabric of a developed civilization. However lawyers have a huge vested interest in fomenting conflict and what they claim to be necessary procedures have the effect of making money for themselves which should make people wary at least of their value in some situations. Ebay with their vast resources can really put the screws to some poor fellow that it doesn't like through its lawyers. My hope was that Ebay has considered the ethics of this situation and that a non-lawyer has taken an objective view of this situation and made a decision that this is indeed a righteous and necessary effort on their part to protect the company against fraud. My experience with being on the periphery of some legal issues is that lawyers just press forward because they think that's their job and that non-lawyers really need to examine carefully whether the job the lawyers are doing is financially and ethically justified otherwise legal churning will just eat up the value of whatever is being fought over.
 
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davefoc said:
There is no doubt that sometimes people need lawyers and that lawyers are an important part of the fabric of a developed civilization. However lawyers have a huge vested interest in fomenting conflict and what they claim to be necessary procedures have the effect of making money for themselves which should make people wary at least of their value in some situations.
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Most lawyers I know take great pride in keeping their clients out of court -- trying to find every clear business solution before invoking an expensive legal one. Just like doctors love having healthy patients, lawyers love having business-savvy clients -- even though it's the ones who ignore their advice that end up making them the most money (whether from huge litigation costs or costly medical procedures).
Lawyers write your contracts, manage your corporate filings, prosecute your IP, and earn money stopping conflict before it starts.
And I've never known a situation where it wasn't the lawyers who first got the two sides of a lawsuit talking and eventually settling to make it go away.
 
davefoc said:
I hope there is some non-lawyer person at Ebay that can take an objective look at this case and see if there isn't some way out that doesn't involve enriching lawyers and possibly unfairly screwing over people.
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According to a stipulation filed by all of the parties to Ebay's civil lawsuit, they appear to be trailing the two criminal cases arising out of the alleged fraud, and back in the beginning of August continued a case management conference in the civil case until January 13, 2012. Considering all of the documents in that case, it appears that Ebay will simply bide its time and wait and see until after the criminal case is litigated. If Mr. Dunning is convicted, they can use that fact to establish liability and pretty much the civil lawsuit will be done--they will win (the doctrine, as I remember it from Civil Procedure class when I was a first year law student, is called "non-mutual offensive collateral estoppel"). On the other hand, if Dunning is acquitted, since Ebay is not actually a party to the criminal litigation (it is "USA v. Dunning" and not "Ebay v. Dunning"), the acquittal is useless for Dunning to use against Ebay (there is no non-mutual defensive collateral estoppel).

As far as the criminal litigation, Ebay has no official say in the matter of whether it continues, although I guess they could ask the AUSAs prosecuting the case to dismiss it, but such a request would most likely fall upon deaf ears.
 
davefoc said:
There is no doubt that sometimes people need lawyers and that lawyers are an important part of the fabric of a developed civilization. However lawyers have a huge vested interest in fomenting conflict and what they claim to be necessary procedures have the effect of making money for themselves which should make people wary at least of their value in some situations. Ebay with their vast resources can really put the screws to some poor fellow that it doesn't like through its lawyers. My hope was that Ebay has considered the ethics of this situation and that a non-lawyer has taken an objective view of this situation and made a decision that this is indeed a righteous and necessary effort on their part to protect the company against fraud. My experience with being on the periphery of some legal issues is that lawyers just press forward because they think that's their job and that non-lawyers really need to examine carefully whether the job the lawyers are doing is financially and ethically justified otherwise legal churning will just eat up the value of whatever is being fought over.
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As far as the criminal litigation, Ebay isn't paying for diddly-crap. It is paid for by the taxpayers of the United States. The prosecutors handling the case make the same salaries whether they go to trial on the Dunning case versus any other case--and they are not interested in protecting Ebay in particular against fraud, but protecting everyone against fraud.
 
Puppycow said:
Sad news indeed. :(

I think I just downloaded the latest episode of Skeptoid this morning from iTunes. Haven't listened yet.
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Kind of weird he's not really addressing this.... more then that, he is going on like everything is perfectly normal.
 
Caper said:
Kind of weird he's not really addressing this.... more then that, he is going on like everything is perfectly normal.
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He put this up on Facebook yesterday:


It's the end to an interesting day. Had a hard weekend, so some much beloved family has been over providing well-needed support. Saw lots of hateful emails and posts by people who do that sort of thing, but also an overwhelming wave of support from the friends who matter. Some people have nothing better to do than complain and rumor monger about the lemons; I'm proud to be one of those who makes the best damn lemonade around and gladly serves it to anyone who wants one, and am especially glad if I can convince one of the complainers to rise up and try some. Life does not always take us in a direction we thought it ever might, and sometimes we unexpectedly need help. Be a helper, or at least avoid trying to make things worse for the thrill of rumor mongering. Much love to all, laying down for the night now.
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