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looking for legal help when dealing with a lawsuit


smokin5s
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This dude touched your wife's face, and you didn't file an assault case? Not sure what the statute of limitations are, but that may be an option for a "free" offensive. I bet a young hot shot attorney would take that pro-bono if they felt the case was strong enough.

 

Your wife get any info for 3rd party witnesses?

 

This. Using 4chan type websites or yellowbullet to troll a company is playing cat in mouse in courts and if a hair is touched on the owners head, you will be questioned.

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This dude touched your wife's face, and you didn't file an assault case? Not sure what the statute of limitations are, but that may be an option for a "free" offensive. I bet a young hot shot attorney would take that pro-bono if they felt the case was strong enough.

 

Your wife get any info for 3rd party witnesses?

 

Criminal law is not my specialty so I may bungle this a little but here it goes:

 

Let's be fair about this a little: The police were called, One of the officers reviewed what I presume is the security footage, and then declined to take a report for assault. Maybe at the scene someone could have pushed a little harder, but you can't force an officer to make an arrest or even file a report against their judgement. Whether the officer made the right call or not, nobody here can say, maybe he looked at the footage and saw it was an accident and wanted to save everyone a trip and a night of filling out paperwork, maybe there is no footage and he just took the restaurant owners word for it. Who knows, but once they left the scene, pretty much that ship has sailed.

 

One of the other problems here, is that the establishment controls the security footage (if there is any), so there isn't evidence to justify filing a complaint for assault a couple days later, esp if there isn't a mark or a bruise. Which brings me to my second point, it's hard to file a civil suit for physical assault when you can't really show injury. Nobody licensed to practice law would touch this case pro bono, hot shot or otherwise. When I did workers compensation "soft tissue" cases (brusies, very small cuts, etc) were considered "bad cases" because the injury usually heals fast with no lingering effects. The point of a civil lawsuit is to try and use money to put you back to whole, and if your body is going to do that on it's own - what whole is there to put back to?

 

This. Using 4chan type websites or yellowbullet to troll a company is playing cat in mouse in courts and if a hair is touched on the owners head, you will be questioned.

 

This kind of social activism usually relies on the anonymity of the customer to protect from litigation. In this case, the restaurant knows who he is because they sent him a letter at home, which means he might take the brunt on this form of social justice. The law isn't clear in this area because of the newness of the technology.

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I don't have extensive experience, but I received a threat from a lawfirm on behalf of an Ins Co saying something along the lines of if I didn't do what they wanted me to do they may be forced to utilize other means through the legal system to get what they wanted from me. I knew they had no case. A few more letters came. I ignored. Sure enough, I never heard from them again. Unless I am being served/notified that I am actually being sued...i'm ignoring.
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I don't have extensive experience, but I received a threat from a lawfirm on behalf of an Ins Co saying something along the lines of if I didn't do what they wanted me to do they may be forced to utilize other means through the legal system to get what they wanted from me. I knew they had no case. A few more letters came. I ignored. Sure enough, I never heard from them again. Unless I am being served/notified that I am actually being sued...i'm ignoring.

 

FWIW, if they are actually going to sue you, they usually don't telegraph that play beforehand by sending a letter unless they are legally required to.

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FWIW, if they are actually going to sue you, they usually don't telegraph that play beforehand by sending a letter unless they are legally required to.

 

That's my point. If they were going to do it, they wouldn't have sent me a letter a month for like 4mo making threats. They would have just done it. So I called their bluff.

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Criminal law is not my specialty so I may bungle this a little but here it goes:

 

Let's be fair about this a little: The police were called, One of the officers reviewed what I presume is the security footage, and then declined to take a report for assault. Maybe at the scene someone could have pushed a little harder, but you can't force an officer to make an arrest or even file a report against their judgement. Whether the officer made the right call or not, nobody here can say, maybe he looked at the footage and saw it was an accident and wanted to save everyone a trip and a night of filling out paperwork, maybe there is no footage and he just took the restaurant owners word for it. Who knows, but once they left the scene, pretty much that ship has sailed.

 

One of the other problems here, is that the establishment controls the security footage (if there is any), so there isn't evidence to justify filing a complaint for assault a couple days later, esp if there isn't a mark or a bruise. Which brings me to my second point, it's hard to file a civil suit for physical assault when you can't really show injury. Nobody licensed to practice law would touch this case pro bono, hot shot or otherwise. When I did workers compensation "soft tissue" cases (brusies, very small cuts, etc) were considered "bad cases" because the injury usually heals fast with no lingering effects. The point of a civil lawsuit is to try and use money to put you back to whole, and if your body is going to do that on it's own - what whole is there to put back to?

 

 

 

This kind of social activism usually relies on the anonymity of the customer to protect from litigation. In this case, the restaurant knows who he is because they sent him a letter at home, which means he might take the brunt on this form of social justice. The law isn't clear in this area because of the newness of the technology.

Pretty much what Kerry is saying. I wasn't allowed in the establishment to ask for witnesses and the police made sure that we left before they did so we couldn't sit in the parking lot asking for witnesses.

 

The problem is, the owner owns all the security footage and he knew police were coming, who knows what was done to the footage before they arrived or sense that time (to be clear, I'm not accusing him of messing with the footage, just stating that since he owns the footage, who knows). The police did review the footage and said that the owner said he was pointing towards the door when he struck her face and it wasn't intentional.. the Police took his word for it and said the video correlates and no report or anything filed. And I want to be very clear about this point, I am not and have not ever wanted any financial gain for anything pertaining to this. The only way I will go after that is if he continues down his "legal" path and then there will be a counter suit filed. My entire intention was to educate other people of his actions and let them make their own decisions whether to give him business or not. The police said that, "there's nothing illegal about being an asshole" and that the owners account of how my wife was struck held up so they didn't file a report. My question though is why the hell was the owner that close to my wife yelling in the first place that he would even come in contact with her pointing towards the door?

 

I have purposely not given the name of the establishment here because this being such a large car club, someone is bound to know the owner on here and then he's now aware of my legal questions which then could put me in a situation. Once this is all settled down, I will make sure to post something in the review area so everyone is aware of the establishment.

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That's my point. If they were going to do it, they wouldn't have sent me a letter a month for like 4mo making threats. They would have just done it. So I called their bluff.

I guess who wants to spend 10k in legal fees because of a negative review on facebook and Google?

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The problem is, the owner owns all the security footage and he knew police were coming, who knows what was done to the footage before they arrived or sense that time (to be clear, I'm not accusing him of messing with the footage, just stating that since he owns the footage, who knows).

 

Just an armchair lawyer here, but I would think tampering/deleting the footage would easily qualify as spoliation, which courts generally treat as "Well, since you got rid of it, it must have been pretty damaging to your case, so we're going to assume that's exactly what it would have showed."

 

But as the others have said, people don't generally telegraph their intentions through the regular mail like this. Either the serve you out of the blue, or they don't. It's a pity Ohio doesn't appear to have any anti-SLAPP legislation on the books for you to point to.

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This thread made me hungry, but I don't want to walk into the wrong restaurant to eat.

 

Anyone (Josh) know of any restaurants I should ABSOLUTELY NOT GO TO?

 

(Completely unrelated to this thread)

 

There's a chinese restaurant somewhere in Bellefontaine. I forget the name but it's TERRIBLE and will make you ill. Guaranteed. Don't go there.

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I guess who wants to spend 10k in legal fees because of a negative review on facebook and Google?

 

Exactly. The cost of legal fees in most cases outweighs the potential return. Foolish move to follow through IMO.

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This dude touched your wife's face, and you didn't file an assault case? Not sure what the statute of limitations are, but that may be an option for a "free" offensive. I bet a young hot shot attorney would take that pro-bono if they felt the case was strong enough.

 

Your wife get any info for 3rd party witnesses?

 

+1

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