This lawsuit has been quite an education for me. I’ve heard that Trump’s standard business strategy was to stiff his subcontractors, and then, when they sued, bury them in legal costs. I now find myself in exactly that scenario going up against the new management of Office Practicum, with its backing of the $3+ billion dollar investment company, Pamlico.
I am the individual who wrote the immunization module, VacLogic, that set them apart from other pediatric practice vendors. It is built on top of my software tool, ARulesXL, which is used to make updates to VacLogic as new vaccines, such as Covid-19, appear, and which is used to distribute VacLogic to their pediatric practice customers.
Step one of the Trump strategy: stiff the subcontractor. That’s what they did. They informed me that, despite paying an annual license fee for ARulesXL for the past ten years, they would no longer pay that annual license fee. That would be OK, except they also informed me that they would continue to use it.
Predictably, I sued, asking to be compensated for the months they distributed my software without a license, and for the court to issue an injunction forcing them to stop distributing it.
Step two: bury them in legal costs. They countered with a variety of irrelevant arguments that are also right out of the Trump playbook.
The arguments repeat a big lie, over and over, saying that a 2003 Memorandum of Understanding, that has absolutely nothing to do with ARulesXL, is a license for them to use the software forever, without paying.
Change of Venue
But they also made sure none of those arguments will get heard anytime soon because they moved for a change of venue.
My daughter went to law school, and she told me one of the situations they studied was the hypothetical case where your client gets a DUI, and he was drunk as a skunk when it happened. Step one — move for a change of venue.
It is amazing how much it is costing in legal fees to deal with the change of venue motion, and how it delays the court proceedings so that the judge doesn’t rule on the injunction and they merrily continue to use and profit from my software.
I would recommend anyone studying at the Trump school of law study this case.
A Small Example
Let me give you a little blow-by-blow up to this point, showing exactly how they work on gumming up the works.
The judge decides to rule on venue, before looking at anything else. That makes sense. To that end he gives us a couple of months to gather documents from them that demonstrate they can be sued in Massachusetts.
OK, so we start that process, issuing interrogatories to that effect. There is a court ordered deadline for them to produce the documents.
But they don’t produce any. Instead, on the last day of the deadline, they come up with a list of objections as to why they won’t answer any of the requests for documents.
Let me bore you with the incredible details of this procedure. Its mind-boggling in its absurdity, and yet, awesome in its effectiveness of making it impractical for an individual to get justice in a court of law against a well funded company.
The objections are all legalese boiler plate. Some are objections to definitions of words. For example, since the judge asked us to gather information, we asked them to “identify” customers in Massachusetts. Simple? No.
They objected to the word “identify.” Now, understand, that my lawyer had already actually defined “identify.” Here was our definition:
9. The terms “identify,” “identity,” and “identification” with respect to a person that is not an individual mean to state its: full name, legal form, date of organization, state of incorporation or organization or other business or license authority, present or last known address and telephone number, and the identity of its chief executive officer, partners, owners, or persons in equivalent positions.
Here was their objection (and the same as all their other objections):
Connexin’s Objection to Definition #9:
Defendant objects to this definition as it is broader than that allowed by Local Rule 26.5. Defendant further objects on the grounds that it is overly broad, vague, ambiguous, lacking in specificity, confusing, calls for legal conclusions, asserts further terms that are not readily defined, and render the interrogatories and/or document requests in which it is used overly broad, confusing, ambiguous, and lacking in specificity. Defendant further objects to the definition to the extent it seeks to impose an obligation on Defendant to provide information or documents that are not within Defendant’s possession, custody and/or control. Defendant further objects to the extent the definition purports to seek information and/or documents that are protected by the attorney-client privilege, work product doctrine or any other applicable privilege. Defendant also objects to this definition to the extent it seeks the production of irrelevant information and/or documents and/or information and documents not proportional to the needs of the case. Defendant objects to the definition to the extent it impermissibly attempts to alter the plain meaning of the interrogatories and/or document requests in which it is used and impose duties not required under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, the Local Rules for the District of Massachusetts, any applicable Standing Orders or Court Orders, and/or any other applicable rules and/or law.
My lawyer had to answer this, explain why it was absurd, and justify our definition and ask them to agree to it. Time and expense incurred.
They likewise filed the exact same boiler plate objection about the terms:
- defendant
- AmziLogic, LLC (are they kidding? it’s the name of my company defined as such)
- concerning
- communication
- date
- describe
- document
- identify (in two other contexts than the one above)
- person
- relationship
- reseller
- customer
And then they object to each interrogatory, such as “identify your customers” with different boiler plate, complaining, among other things, that “your” is not clearly defined.
They stopped paying license fees on July 1, 2021, and now, over a year later my lawyer is busy responding to all this minutia, running up my legal bills, just to answer the question of venue. Meanwhile, Connexin continued to distribute and profit from the sale of my software between July 2021 and June 2022.
Litigation Funding
What’s amazing is that this scenario, of a large company effectively stealing intellectual property from a small entity, and burying it in legal costs when they sue, is so common that an entire field of investment has grown up around it.
It’s called litigation funding. There are so many of these cases that could easily be won, if the plaintiff had enough money, that there are companies that have now sprung up who invest in exactly this sort of suit. They provide the funding for the lawsuit in exchange for a good payout if there is a favorable outcome.
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