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The judge ruled that the payment had to be made immediately; they could sue back, but they would have to pay first. In their words, it was a “BS ruling”, and th

The judge ruled that the payment had to be made immediately; they could sue back, but they would have to pay first. In their words, it was a “BS ruling”, and they simply didn’t pay. I’ll tell you that I didn’t know you could just say “no”, but they did. My lawyers were at the point that they would send a (legally backed) letter to all their customers, that their payments should be redirected to some court. It would have caused a massive hellfire, though. I had the choice of going through with all this, but the outcome would still be uncertain, legal fees would increase, and take a long time regardless. It was a fully bootstrapped business, I was relatively young and in debt, and I decided to renegotiate. In the end I got the money I needed to pay off my debts, legal fees + then some, a huge learning experience, and took a 1 year sabbatical. I just wanted this whole thing to be over.

csomar 4y ago
> I had the choice of going through with all this, but the outcome would still be uncertain, legal fees would increase, and take a long time regardless. So it’s just you deciding not to go with this… for some reason. I’m pretty sure if you enforced the ruling, you’d have gotten a quick response from them. It might seem like a dick move but they moved first. At $44bn, I highly doubt the dudes of Twitter will take the same stance you took.
- lazide 4y ago
  I have a friend who got screwed by a major (top 5) US bank, won the court case against them, and they then refused to pay the settlement. He went through the paperwork, and 6 months later they wrote him a cashiers check right then and there when he showed up with the Sheriff to take possession of one of their prized historic artifacts from the lobby of their corporate headquarters during business hours. Not very many people are able and willing to deal with the shittiness of all the paperwork required, and a lot of bad actors count on that.
  - Kinrany 4y ago
    Should have taken the artifact. Magic items are always better
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- naikrovek 4y ago
  > I’m pretty sure if you enforced the ruling, you’d have gotten a quick response from them. don't tell someone that you know more about a situation that they were in and you were not. A) it's freaking rude as hell, and B) you absolutely DO NOT have more awareness about this situation than the person who lived it.
  - armada651 4y ago
    I don't get this mentality. I don't get why people think living through an experience makes them such an expert that any outside opinion is immediately offensive. An outsider can always offer a new perspective and they could be more knowledgeable than the person who went through the experience.
    - stingraycharles 4y ago
      It wasn’t my intention to claim to be an expert on the situation, as much as it was mostly to share a story and point out that there’s a large grey area here. The parent definitely was factual and correct, but the tone made it sound a bit as if they thought my reasons for doing so were incorrect. That would be a bit of a stretch, and I think that’s what was bothering @naikrovek
      - armada651 4y ago
        Didn't mean to imply that was how you felt. My response was aimed at the mentality @naikrovek was stating, which is definitely a wider held belief in some communities.
    - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
      It’s not offensive. It just makes the replier looks like an idiot. Who do you think had the best perspective on the situation? The person who went through the litigation, had lawyers, knew all the details of the case and made the decision of the poster sending a canned five lines reply based on a paragraph? It does take much awareness to realise that sending an abrasive reply when you are in no position to do so might be ill received by the community (well at least the quickly diminishing part who wants to have an interesting discussion).
pas 4y ago
wtf. which jurisdiction is this? so strange you can't take the final ruling and go to a collections agency and get your money :o
- joshspankit 4y ago
  Do some thought experiments in your head, and you can see how quickly things break down. Like: The courts say pay, and the company says no. So you... - ...send police (not really the jurisdiction of the police, but let’s pretend they go). The police show up and say “Give us the money you owe” and the business says no. Now what? They can’t go on to private property without permission or warrant. Dead end. - ... become your own collections company. You call them as much as you are legally allowed, and ask them for the money. Each time they say no. You call their family (you might not be allowed to do this) and they say “not my problem” so they are dead ends. You call their vendors and clients but all you are doing is informing them that company X owes you money. They don’t have any obligation to give you that money. - ... sell the debt to a collections company. That company gives you pennies on the dollar (20% if you’re lucky). - ... work through the courts to garnish wages. You have no idea what this company pays their staff for wages, nor who to target (the exec who said no?), but you push forward anyway and end up getting that garnishment. You now get 30% of everything that person makes. Let’s call that 30k/yr at the time of the garnishment. Then, that person quits or takes a “lower-paying job” and you’re down to 10k/yr. It will take decades to get what’s owed to you and in the mean time this person is actively battling you in court because they hate losing 30% of what they make every month. - ... pursue action that gives you a percentage of the company’s net revenue. If you get it, you can only celebrate for what feels like a moment because they could have a “sudden increase in expenses” or choose to close the business and start a new one with a different name. You can try to get the agreement shifted to that new company, but that’s a whole new challenge and the whole time the founders are saying “No.” “Not our responsibility.” and so on. It’s really very hard to get cash in hand from anyone, whether there is a court ruling or not.
  - pas 4y ago
    it's not that hard here (Hungary) yes using a collections company is the fastest way, but here the cost is less than 10%. and it's not that hard in case of mortgage defaults in the US either (foreclosure is completely routine). oh and there was a story of a dude who won some claims against some bank, the branch was either clueless or forgot to pay, so eventually the dude went to the branch office and packed up some of their furniture. (which is of course less routine) the way it works here is that if the company doesn't pay upon the court order they automatically enter into bankruptcy and the court appoints someone to manage the company during. so they can't just suddenly "increase expenses"
doikor 4y ago
Seems like a really complex system to get your money. Here in Finland you would just start bankruptcy procedures by filing a claim in the court and with the court order saying they owe you it would go through in a day or two giving the other party 2 weeks time to pay or the court would take over all their assets and get you your money (and sell those assets if they don’t have it in cash) A single verified unpaid bill is grounds for starting the bankruptcy procedure here so it is actually good tool to force big companies to pay. Though you can say goodbye to any future business relations with them if you do that.
- lazide 4y ago
  Getting though it however, and actually getting paid is a long and arduous process. That’s what the poster was up against. It’s not THAT uncommon for some folks to just say ‘oh yeah, make me’, and while there are (usually) methods of doing it without their co-operation, it’s never easy.
  - doikor 4y ago
    If you are the only debtor and they have the money (no need to sell anything) then it is actually really fast. The court just takes over the bank accounts and sends you the money. The real slowness of the process kicks in when there are multiple parties claiming their money and there isn’t enough assets to pay everyone.
    - lazide 4y ago
      By ‘really fast’, I’d wager 6 months to a year, no? You’d have to show all that was the case for instance, which if they ignored you and generally were unco-operative would take awhile.
      - doikor 4y ago
        Took me 17 days last time. A couple days for the claim to go trough the court and 14 days of time for them to pay. After that as they did not during the next bank day the court took control of their bank account and wired me the money. This was for unpaid wages but the same applies to any unpaid bill. As I said it really only gets slow if the party does not have the money (as in they are bankrupt for real instead of just refusing to pay) and there are multiple parties claiming it. At that point it slows down to figure out how to split the assets. There really isn’t any way to avoid this outside shutting down the company and moving the money out of the accounts but that will just dig the hole deeper as now they are not only contempt of court (not paying as ordered to when they are capable of) but they are also actively stealing/hiding someone else’s money.
bryanrasmussen 4y ago
I'm betting that for the money Musk is in for they will go with that option though, and considering all the side effects that would probably happen if Musk just said 'No' - he would have to be a level of stubborn that borders on mental instability.
afrcnc 4y ago
So, basically, if you rich enough in the US, you can simply ignore the courts?
- paulcole 4y ago
  Yes and it doesn’t have to do with rich/poor. Until someone either takes an action on your behalf or physically forces you to take an action you can ignore their requests all you want.
- harambae 4y ago
  At least for a long time, yes. The example that comes to mind... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/california-sues-vinod-khosla-beach/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/califor...
Forgeties79 4y ago
Stories like this remind me why I hate seeing advice on forums that often boil down to…”and if that doesn’t work, just sue them.“ It’s a massive, risky, expensive, physically and emotionally draining experience.

csomar 4y ago

> I had the choice of going through with all this, but the outcome would still be uncertain, legal fees would increase, and take a long time regardless. So it’s just you deciding not to go with this… for some reason. I’m pretty sure if you enforced the ruling, you’d have gotten a quick response from them. It might seem like a dick move but they moved first. At $44bn, I highly doubt the dudes of Twitter will take the same stance you took.

lazide 4y ago
I have a friend who got screwed by a major (top 5) US bank, won the court case against them, and they then refused to pay the settlement. He went through the paperwork, and 6 months later they wrote him a cashiers check right then and there when he showed up with the Sheriff to take possession of one of their prized historic artifacts from the lobby of their corporate headquarters during business hours. Not very many people are able and willing to deal with the shittiness of all the paperwork required, and a lot of bad actors count on that.
- Kinrany 4y ago
  Should have taken the artifact. Magic items are always better
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
naikrovek 4y ago
> I’m pretty sure if you enforced the ruling, you’d have gotten a quick response from them. don't tell someone that you know more about a situation that they were in and you were not. A) it's freaking rude as hell, and B) you absolutely DO NOT have more awareness about this situation than the person who lived it.
- armada651 4y ago
  I don't get this mentality. I don't get why people think living through an experience makes them such an expert that any outside opinion is immediately offensive. An outsider can always offer a new perspective and they could be more knowledgeable than the person who went through the experience.
  - stingraycharles 4y ago
    It wasn’t my intention to claim to be an expert on the situation, as much as it was mostly to share a story and point out that there’s a large grey area here. The parent definitely was factual and correct, but the tone made it sound a bit as if they thought my reasons for doing so were incorrect. That would be a bit of a stretch, and I think that’s what was bothering @naikrovek
    - armada651 4y ago
      Didn't mean to imply that was how you felt. My response was aimed at the mentality @naikrovek was stating, which is definitely a wider held belief in some communities.
  - WastingMyTime89 4y ago
    It’s not offensive. It just makes the replier looks like an idiot. Who do you think had the best perspective on the situation? The person who went through the litigation, had lawyers, knew all the details of the case and made the decision of the poster sending a canned five lines reply based on a paragraph? It does take much awareness to realise that sending an abrasive reply when you are in no position to do so might be ill received by the community (well at least the quickly diminishing part who wants to have an interesting discussion).

pas 4y ago

wtf. which jurisdiction is this? so strange you can't take the final ruling and go to a collections agency and get your money :o

joshspankit 4y ago
Do some thought experiments in your head, and you can see how quickly things break down. Like: The courts say pay, and the company says no. So you... - ...send police (not really the jurisdiction of the police, but let’s pretend they go). The police show up and say “Give us the money you owe” and the business says no. Now what? They can’t go on to private property without permission or warrant. Dead end. - ... become your own collections company. You call them as much as you are legally allowed, and ask them for the money. Each time they say no. You call their family (you might not be allowed to do this) and they say “not my problem” so they are dead ends. You call their vendors and clients but all you are doing is informing them that company X owes you money. They don’t have any obligation to give you that money. - ... sell the debt to a collections company. That company gives you pennies on the dollar (20% if you’re lucky). - ... work through the courts to garnish wages. You have no idea what this company pays their staff for wages, nor who to target (the exec who said no?), but you push forward anyway and end up getting that garnishment. You now get 30% of everything that person makes. Let’s call that 30k/yr at the time of the garnishment. Then, that person quits or takes a “lower-paying job” and you’re down to 10k/yr. It will take decades to get what’s owed to you and in the mean time this person is actively battling you in court because they hate losing 30% of what they make every month. - ... pursue action that gives you a percentage of the company’s net revenue. If you get it, you can only celebrate for what feels like a moment because they could have a “sudden increase in expenses” or choose to close the business and start a new one with a different name. You can try to get the agreement shifted to that new company, but that’s a whole new challenge and the whole time the founders are saying “No.” “Not our responsibility.” and so on. It’s really very hard to get cash in hand from anyone, whether there is a court ruling or not.
- pas 4y ago
  it's not that hard here (Hungary) yes using a collections company is the fastest way, but here the cost is less than 10%. and it's not that hard in case of mortgage defaults in the US either (foreclosure is completely routine). oh and there was a story of a dude who won some claims against some bank, the branch was either clueless or forgot to pay, so eventually the dude went to the branch office and packed up some of their furniture. (which is of course less routine) the way it works here is that if the company doesn't pay upon the court order they automatically enter into bankruptcy and the court appoints someone to manage the company during. so they can't just suddenly "increase expenses"

doikor 4y ago

Seems like a really complex system to get your money. Here in Finland you would just start bankruptcy procedures by filing a claim in the court and with the court order saying they owe you it would go through in a day or two giving the other party 2 weeks time to pay or the court would take over all their assets and get you your money (and sell those assets if they don’t have it in cash) A single verified unpaid bill is grounds for starting the bankruptcy procedure here so it is actually good tool to force big companies to pay. Though you can say goodbye to any future business relations with them if you do that.

lazide 4y ago
Getting though it however, and actually getting paid is a long and arduous process. That’s what the poster was up against. It’s not THAT uncommon for some folks to just say ‘oh yeah, make me’, and while there are (usually) methods of doing it without their co-operation, it’s never easy.
- doikor 4y ago
  If you are the only debtor and they have the money (no need to sell anything) then it is actually really fast. The court just takes over the bank accounts and sends you the money. The real slowness of the process kicks in when there are multiple parties claiming their money and there isn’t enough assets to pay everyone.
  - lazide 4y ago
    By ‘really fast’, I’d wager 6 months to a year, no? You’d have to show all that was the case for instance, which if they ignored you and generally were unco-operative would take awhile.
    - doikor 4y ago
      Took me 17 days last time. A couple days for the claim to go trough the court and 14 days of time for them to pay. After that as they did not during the next bank day the court took control of their bank account and wired me the money. This was for unpaid wages but the same applies to any unpaid bill. As I said it really only gets slow if the party does not have the money (as in they are bankrupt for real instead of just refusing to pay) and there are multiple parties claiming it. At that point it slows down to figure out how to split the assets. There really isn’t any way to avoid this outside shutting down the company and moving the money out of the accounts but that will just dig the hole deeper as now they are not only contempt of court (not paying as ordered to when they are capable of) but they are also actively stealing/hiding someone else’s money.

bryanrasmussen 4y ago

I'm betting that for the money Musk is in for they will go with that option though, and considering all the side effects that would probably happen if Musk just said 'No' - he would have to be a level of stubborn that borders on mental instability.

afrcnc 4y ago

So, basically, if you rich enough in the US, you can simply ignore the courts?

paulcole 4y ago
Yes and it doesn’t have to do with rich/poor. Until someone either takes an action on your behalf or physically forces you to take an action you can ignore their requests all you want.
harambae 4y ago
At least for a long time, yes. The example that comes to mind... https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/california-sues-vinod-khosla-beach/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/01/08/califor...

Forgeties79 4y ago

Stories like this remind me why I hate seeing advice on forums that often boil down to…”and if that doesn’t work, just sue them.“ It’s a massive, risky, expensive, physically and emotionally draining experience.