Process Server Sues Righthaven For Unpaid Bills... From 2010

from the righthaven-just-looks-worse-and-worse dept

Thu, Jan 5th 2012 7:52pm — Mike Masnick

Another day, another story of Righthaven incompetence. The latest is that a process server that the company used, most likely for some of its hundreds of lawsuits against websites for supposedly infringing on copyrights, is now suing Righthaven for failing to pay its bills. The lawsuit, embedded below, is pretty straightforward. Legal Wings Inc. was used between May and October of 2010, for which it billed Righthaven to the tune of $5,670 -- not a particularly huge sum. According to Legal Wings, Righthaven simply never paid, despite multiple requests to be paid. What strikes me as interesting here is that I can almost understand Righthaven's recent efforts not to pay up the legal fees it owes, if you believe that the company is effectively out of cash and/or saving up its cash to fight the appeals. Obviously, there are reasonable arguments to be made that even that's bogus, but if we can grant that assumption, the recent refusals to pay make at least some sense.

But this involves a company that Righthaven used in 2010. That is, this all happened way, way, way before Righthaven's legal campaign fell apart. It happened many months before judges ruled that Righthaven didn't actually hold the copyrights over which it was suing. In other words, this was back in the time when companies were still paying Righthaven good money. The company was supposedly flush with money, from both an investment from Stephens Media as well as settlement cash from sites that just paid up rather than fought. And it still refused to pay a simple $5,670 bill. It really makes you question what the folks behind Righthaven were really up to all of this time...

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Filed Under: lawsuit, process server
Companies: legal wings, righthaven

27 Comments

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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 8:15pm

Until the forensic accountants get access to the records that weren't "accidentally" shredded, I'm pretty sure it is safe to assume that every dollar they got was quickly moved out of the company preping for the day they got caught.
It is however bad form to not pay the people who help you bring in the money.
It would be nice if the whole company was ruled a complete farce and not eligible for the protections of being a corporation, so they could pursue all of the people who put this into motion individually.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2012 @ 8:16pm

Righthaven were always engaged in "legal" blackmail,
those who "worked" on their behalf had the same opportunity as everyone else did to judge what kind
of people would engage in such activity.
For some reason they found it acceptable.
It's nice that Righthaven are getting smacked around by even their hired minions now,
but I doubt anyone has any real sympathy for the minions either.

I know some people have difficulty in distinguishing between what is legal and what is right or just, but it really isn't all that difficult.
Live by misuse of the law and you will suffer and even face utter destruction at the hands of the law, a lesson sure to be overlooked by the **AA's and all their kind.
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That Anonymous Coward (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 8:26pm

Re:
They are process servers, I doubt they were clued into what was contained in every document they delivered.
If they refused to work for every lawyer doing something sketchy, they'd be out of business.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:00pm

Re: Re:
and your point is?
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Suja (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:05pm

Re:
I know some people have difficulty in distinguishing between what is legal and what is right or just, but it really isn't all that difficult.

about the only ones who have difficulty are those who know they can get away with abusing it, unfortunately

Live by misuse of the law and you will suffer and even face utter destruction at the hands of the law, a lesson sure to be overlooked by the **AA's and all their kind.

i've seen/heard of/read about too many who have lived, and died, by misuse of the law without ever facing a single repercussion for it to have hope in that anymore

just too few in power who care to stop it and too few who would do so who are (and ever will be) in power

it's alot of odds stacked in favor of the abuse
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Suja (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:11pm

Re: Re:
**or THINK they can get away with it, apparently Righthaven thought so, still, i consider them more of an exception than anything else, for every 1 that gets beat down 10 more get away clean
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:23pm

The amazing part is that for THIS the attorneys will be disciplined.
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ChurchHatesTucker (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:43pm

Re:
I like to think that Righthaven were stealth copyfighters.

Really, it's the only way the story makes sense.
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xenomancer (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:43pm

A Simple Misunderstanding
Maybe Righthaven missed the dollar sign and the accompanying grammatical problems and thought Legal Wings was simply late by a hair over 100 years.
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Scote, 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:44pm

Re: Re:
Actually, process servers have to know what they are serving so they can sign an affidavit of service.
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Scote, 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:46pm

What happened to the threatened bankruptsy?
Righthaven told courts that it shouldn't have to post a bond, intimating that it might file bankruptcy if it did. Now it seems like Gibson is to lazy and/or incompetent to even do that.

Say, any word on whether he showed up to today's court ordered depo hearing? I'm kind of hoping to hear about a warrant for his arrest for failure to appear...
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Jesse (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 9:52pm

Imaginary theft bad, actual theft goooood.
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G Thompson (profile), 5 Jan 2012 @ 10:45pm

Has anyone asked the obvious?

If they were not paying bills in 2010 & early 2011. Could they then of been KNOWINGLY running a business/service whilst insolvent?

With what has occurred already with this debacle of an enterprise, nothing would surprise me.
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Anonymous Coward, 5 Jan 2012 @ 10:53pm

IANAL...but does this invalidate the legal 'served' documents?
Something about not benefiting from ill gotten 'gains'?

And since they are being sued, they are just as guilty as all the grandmothers, printers, and dead people sued by the **aa's for copyright infringement!!!

AMIRITE?
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mike allen (profile), 6 Jan 2012 @ 1:48am

It wont be long before a creditor files for bankruptcy against righthaven looking forward to that.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 4:02am

Re: Re: Re:
Sure companies get away with it, but apparently not if the sole or primary business plan of these companies is to abuse the law, see ACS:Law in the UK and Righthaven in the U.S.

I still cannot get over the leniency and tolerance shown by so many judges and courts to these trolls however.
Surely people or a company can treat the courts with as much contempt as Righthaven have been demonstrating without some Judge somewhere actually doing something about it.

Right now, why isn't there a warrant out for the no shows Pizzle and Drizzle or whatever their names are, and why is Mangano still getting to make shrugging motions and claiming he didn't know what day they were supposed to turn up on.
http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2012/jan/06/righthaven-defendant-frustrated-again-debt-collect/

Hard to believe these people still aren't taking their situation seriously and impossible to understand why the court is going along with it, they've already given them the rope to hang themselves many times over and they have done just that, what else are the courts looking for.
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abc gum, 6 Jan 2012 @ 5:08am

Re:
"It would be nice if the whole company was ruled a complete farce and not eligible for the protections of being a corporation"

As with common felons, would Righthaven lose its right to vote, possess fire arms, etc? \tongue in cheek
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 5:15am

Given how shady Righthaven has been to begin with it wouldn't be surprising if someone were embezzling a bunch of money from it to. After all, a shady company needs shady people to run it, otherwise it wouldn't be a shady company.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 5:25am

Re: Re: Re:
Which doesn't make them the 'minions' people seem to think. You guys going to vilify the cleaning lady, as well? It is just people doing a job, and knowledge of what the service is for is not knowledge of the legality of the case being brought.
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Bengie, 6 Jan 2012 @ 5:28am

Re:
Ahh... legal blackmail.. Righthaven doesn't piss me off so much as out legal system which supports it.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 5:47am

Re:
I'm sure they have the money, and if the process server really wanted it bad enough, a visit from a representative of one of the local organized crime outfits could probably extract the money with little difficulty, albeit for a large cut of it.
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Scote, 6 Jan 2012 @ 8:07am

Indeed, they only know what they are serving, not the merits.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 8:11am

Re: IANAL...but does this invalidate the legal 'served' documents?
I have this odd feeling in the pit of my stomach that somehow they are gonna worm their way out of all of this....
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 9:21am

Re:
All I'm saying is that if you do business with unethical people you can't expect sympathy and it shouldn't surprise you when they do the unethical to you.

Going running to mama and crying just looks as silly as the righthaven lot do now.
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Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2012 @ 9:23am

Re: Re:
"It is just people doing a job"

I hereby serve notice that Godwin's Law will shortly apply.
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ltlw0lf (profile), 6 Jan 2012 @ 10:16am

Re:
Indeed, they only know what they are serving, not the merits.

Absolutely agree, but this whole thread reminds me of the discussion in Clerks about the contractors on the Death Star. These guys may not have known what they were dealing with, but they had to have some clue that the company was shady and they probably weren't going to be paid. I suspect, at the very least, the process servers are going to be a little more careful in the future about who they do jobs for.
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Andrew Webster, 10 Mar 2012 @ 12:24pm

A process server only needs to know the title of the documents, not their content. An affidavit or declaration of service states which documents were served, so that is the only information in a document I need to know to complete it. Whether or not a case is frivilous (sp?), or that company has a legal right to bring the suit is not for the process server to determine.
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