Comments on: Apple v. Psystar: What’s the Deal With the $75,000.00?

By: dizzle

dizzle — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:43:21 +0000

That is a good observation Ralf, let me look into it. I don’t work in bankruptcy at all, but obviously have some knowledge of it as part of my legal assistant certification. If I don’t know or can’t figure it out, I will say so

Without looking at the document again, here is what immediately sprang to mind when I read your observation. We don’t know all that happened in the discovery dispute as some of the information was redacted; but we do know that Psystar’s poor record keeping was an issue, so perhaps they can’t put a figure together? Still, it would seem that some explanation there would be in order. There might be some exceptions or local bankruptcy rules that I am not aware of, however.

By: Ralf

Ralf — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:37:59 +0000

just a side note: Psystar’s staff doesn’t seem to be able to exactly read or fill in the form.
They are asked to tell income from business during TWO years prior to the bancrupty filing but they do state only for five MONTHS.
Or could it be intentional?

By: dizzle

dizzle — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:37:45 +0000

Hi Joey, I hope I didn’t insult you. Most of the readers here no very little of the court system and come to me and ask for explanations. So what you are saying is that some Plaintiffs purposefully put their claim below the threshold to stay out of Federal Court? Yes, that would be typical. In my cases, as I said before, I work for an insurance defense firm as a legal assistant, very often the Plaintiff will name the local insurance agent along with the insurance company to destroy diversity because they want to keep out of the Federal Court. Some lawyers just prefer not to practice in Federal Court. I love Federal Court practice; it is neat and orderly. The lawyers don’t have to stand around at motion calendar, and most every motion is argued entirely on paper with very few hearings. Federal Court Judges though are not as tolerant of gamesmanship, so if a lawyer’s particular style is dramatic, or does not have great writing talent but does have great oral argument skills, they might prefer State Court. Everyone here loves Federal Court, and the Federal Courts have all gone paperless which is wonderful.

By: Joey Sichol

Joey Sichol — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:34:55 +0000

I am well aware that federal rules are nationwide. That’s sort of the definition of “federal.”

It’s funny, because I work for a legal newspaper and I heard our reporters discussing this dollar amount in relating to diversity of citizenship, although not related to the Apple v. psystar case. (I’m a graphic designer – not a lawyer – but that is probably obvious… That’s what I get for overhearing half of a conversation between real lawyers…)

I was insinuating that lawyers list their damages as “$74,999.99″ so there is no chance of even touching the “threshold.”

I’ll be sure to put IANAL before my posts from now on! Please, correct me where I’m wrong so I can sound a little more intelligent when I talk about it with our on-staff attorneys…

By: dizzle

dizzle — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:23:28 +0000

Please always if you run across a Psystar issue I haven’t covered, please do shoot me an email or @deedeewarren message on twitter. I found out about the Macworld piece that way–somehow I missed it in my blog rss feeds, but I subscribe to so many feeds, it was probably one of those times I just hit “mark all read” to start with a clean slate.

By: dizzle

dizzle — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:00:17 +0000

Joey, the Federal Rules are nationwide. Remember that there is a difference between the State Court system (which varies from state to state) and the Federal Court System, which is national. In order to file a case in Federal Court, it must be shown that the Federal Courts, rather than the State Courts have jurisdiction. The most typical route is that all the parties have diversity of citizenship (this is allegedly to prevent the party on their “home turf” to have favouritism from the local judge–I find this increasingly archaic in these days of rapidly encroaching Federal powers) and that their dispute involve more than $75,000.00. People may file suit for any dollar they wish; but if they want to play in the Federal Court’s sandbox, they have to bring the right toys.

Federal Court cases are my day to day job. Every single one of the Federal Court cases that I work on are in Federal Court due to diversity of citizenship (the insurance company my boss represents is a foreign corporation–foreign meaning out of state–and the amount in controversy is more than $75,000.00). Another way a case will be accepted in the Federal Court System is if it involves a Federal Constitutional question.

By: Joey Sichol

Joey Sichol — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 18:01:47 +0000

In Virginia, you see people file suits for $74,999.99… Must have a slightly different threshold or interpretation of the law…

By: Kid Icarus

Kid Icarus — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 17:33:32 +0000

Thanks Dizzle, once again you reel in some sanity from the otherwise insane wasteland of Apple-Psystar blogging.

I actually read Macworld’s piece about the $75k and was going to shoot you an email to see what you thought about all of this, but low-and-behold, you have already set the record straight.

By: Spade Aceman

Spade Aceman — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:52:13 +0000

The figure of $3 million does seem excessively high, if it’s partially referring to something which seems to be derived from a project that’s still freely available.

Thanks for clarifying the story behind the $75,000 figure – sounds like something that’s fairly standard. You’d think that people who are actually paid to report on the news would know something like this, but apparently these days it’s up to “citizen journalists” to set the record straight!

By: dizzle

dizzle — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:51:56 +0000

That is an interesting story in and of itself. Psystar is claiming that they have something different. I don’t know whether that is true or not, but let’s say for sake of argument that it is. It almost certainly is derivative of the OSx86 project, and they didn’t place restrictions on using for commercial gain (they have since done so).

But that really is the interesting part of the filing. The $75,000 issue that Macworld and a few other blogs have made a big deal out of is routine. It reminds me of when some blogs were claiming that Psystar claimed that Apple never copyrighted OSX. Just a little bit of critical thought should have set off the baloney detector. In this issue, there has been no judgment, Apple never claimed a sum certain, and in fact, in Apple filing of last week, it affirmatively said that the exact figure was not known and that is one reason why the California case had to proceed before Psystar could even think of putting together a reorganization plan. Also considering that Apple asked for punitive damages, obviously the claim isn’t limited to $75,000; it simply is at least that amount.

By: Spade Aceman

Spade Aceman — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:39:21 +0000

Proprietary bootstrap technology, operating system interoperability technology, Wait... isn't that the exact same technology they stole from the OSx86 Project?