3 ms·

Will Kevin be okay? Is he immune to retaliation from Google for letting that information slip?

by bhaney 3y ago

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
BeetleB 3y ago
Why should he be? This isn't whistleblower territory. He was not compelled to provide the answer. He screwed up.
- bhaney 3y ago
  > Why should he be? Because this seems like an honest mistake made by an academic who probably isn't used to the pressure of being a witness in a massive antitrust trial? It doesn't seem like he intentionally used his place on the stand to leak information that he knew he shouldn't or anything like that. But there's a good chance that mistake just made him an enemy in the form of a trillion dollar mega-corp, and I don't think it's unreasonable for some legal protections to be extended to him for it.
- turquoisevar 3y ago
  This is a gross misunderstanding on multiple fronts. For starters, Kevin Murphy is an external expert witness and not on the payroll of Google. During trials like this, it is expected to hire outside expert witnesses to testify why party X’s thing is “good actually” and why party Y got it wrong. So Mr. Murphy will be fine. Secondly, witnesses, expert or otherwise, are indeed compelled to answer questions when on the stand. It would otherwise be quite useless to put them on the stand in the first place. What happens in cases like this, however, is that there are parts that occur only in front of the judge and the two parties for confidentiality reasons and parts that happen in public for everyone in the gallery to hear. It’s the job of the lawyers to pay attention to the questions asked to ensure that questions that could lead to answers with confidential information are answered behind closed doors. Witnesses aren’t expected to keep track of this when answering questions unless explicitly briefed by the court to save specific topics for the confidential part of the cross/direct examination. So the ones that screwed up are the lawyers, perhaps the court, but not the expert witness.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

Will Kevin be okay? Is he immune to retaliation from Google for letting that information slip?

by bhaney 3y ago

Will Kevin be okay? Is he immune to retaliation from Google for letting that information slip?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

BeetleB 3y ago

Why should he be? This isn't whistleblower territory. He was not compelled to provide the answer. He screwed up.

bhaney 3y ago
> Why should he be? Because this seems like an honest mistake made by an academic who probably isn't used to the pressure of being a witness in a massive antitrust trial? It doesn't seem like he intentionally used his place on the stand to leak information that he knew he shouldn't or anything like that. But there's a good chance that mistake just made him an enemy in the form of a trillion dollar mega-corp, and I don't think it's unreasonable for some legal protections to be extended to him for it.
turquoisevar 3y ago
This is a gross misunderstanding on multiple fronts. For starters, Kevin Murphy is an external expert witness and not on the payroll of Google. During trials like this, it is expected to hire outside expert witnesses to testify why party X’s thing is “good actually” and why party Y got it wrong. So Mr. Murphy will be fine. Secondly, witnesses, expert or otherwise, are indeed compelled to answer questions when on the stand. It would otherwise be quite useless to put them on the stand in the first place. What happens in cases like this, however, is that there are parts that occur only in front of the judge and the two parties for confidentiality reasons and parts that happen in public for everyone in the gallery to hear. It’s the job of the lawyers to pay attention to the questions asked to ensure that questions that could lead to answers with confidential information are answered behind closed doors. Witnesses aren’t expected to keep track of this when answering questions unless explicitly briefed by the court to save specific topics for the confidential part of the cross/direct examination. So the ones that screwed up are the lawyers, perhaps the court, but not the expert witness.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]