The legal system IS NOT fair! If you think that a person can’t be sued for something fictitious and that our judges would knock down such frivolous lawsuits then sadly, you are mistaken.
It is all about money! If a company with a ton of cash at their disposal wants something of yours, they can easily file a lawsuit and burden you with endless costs. For example, say that a big company wants your silence about their bad product, or the competition wants your website, all they need to do is make up a story and claim you’ve harmed them in some way and at a minimum, you’ll have to:
- Research and find an excellent attorney (the most important step!).
- Pay that attorney a $10,000 retainer.
- That attorney is going to have to research everything and every minute is going to cost you.
- Try Negotiation but likely the big company won’t quit until they get what they’re after.
- You’ll have to file an abusive litigation letter for the frivolous lawsuit (but this rarely works – they don’t like to ding their own) – consider your $10,000 retainer gone at this point.
- You’ll have to fight jurisdiction and hopefully get the case dismissed from their state which will cause them to fight you in your state – this is a must and will run you at least $30,000.
- Even if you win on jurisdiction, they may file again in your state. Either way, your attorney will have to file a response to the complaint – that will run you another $10,000 (Figure $20,000 for a great response!).
Just that alone could easily cost you $60,000, and that is just the beginning! To make matters worse, they’ll likely attack you and your business but they’ll do it under their business identity so that should they lose, you’ll likely never recover a penny once they fold the company. You however, will be burdened with incredible expenses and if you lose, your business and personal finances could easily be depleted.
If you’re really unlucky, you could end up fighting an attorney like Saul Goodman in “Breaking Bad” that can easily manipulate the legal system to make it even harder to defend yourself.
There is always the option of fighting your lawsuit without an attorney as Janie McFarland has done in her 7 million dollar bed bug case against a Super 8 Motel, but we’ve all heard the phrase “A lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client” and not being a lawyer doesn’t make it any better! However, the court can show more leniency for those representing themselves and if you have a great law library, they may help you along the way. Take a look at McFarland’s case for an idea of what’s involved should you decide to go this route.
I’m going to cover all different types of bed bug lawsuits, from scammers being caught, to businesses not realizing their mistakes, to innocent people being bullied.
All the cases reviewed on this website are backed by official court documents and the complaint and associated information should not be considered findings of fact or liability.
Many of the lawsuits we review are hard to read legal files, so we painstakingly convert them into a format that’s easy to understand and read by anyone, using any device. We do the best we can but there is no substitute for the original when it comes to accuracy and legal interpretation.
If you have an issue with anything we’ve covered, please feel free to contact us at bedbugcases@bedbugsbite.org
Thanks for visiting and don’t hesitate to offer suggestions!
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