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Making claims one is unable to substantiate and dragging a case through discovery is normally considered an abuse of the legal system, as we saw in, e.g. SCO vs

by Natsu 12y ago

Making claims one is unable to substantiate and dragging a case through discovery is normally considered an abuse of the legal system, as we saw in, e.g. SCO vs. IBM, where they also hoped to be able to eventually find an IBM document somewhere that might prove them right. The fact that they did not find any such "smoking gun" after all that legal discovery makes me believe that they are honest, as that means they couldn't find anything at all after a lot of searching.

pyre 12y ago
A big difference is that SCO spend years in "discovery" always claiming that some sort of evidence was just around the corner. The only reason that judges allowed that charade to go on was out of an extreme abundance of caution (probably too much). > Making claims one is unable to substantiate and dragging a case through discovery is normally considered an abuse of the legal system A judge can decide to kill said "fishing expedition" too. It's not like these fishing expeditions just "happen" and once initiated are unstoppable. If it was ludicrous, then the judge should have denied it.
- Natsu 12y ago
  Yes, but as your own post alludes, the judges didn't even shut down a SCO-level fishing expedition for... how many years was that? I lost track and I used to follow Groklaw daily. The fact that this got shut out so quickly simply points to the fact that there was essentially nothing to substantiate Pao's legal claims.
michaelochurch 12y ago
There's a difference between an unsuccessful lawsuit and a frivolous one (i.e. one without merit, intended to harm or extort). All evidence indicates that she made the claims in good faith. The purpose of discovery in these cases is that you don't know what has been said about you. That's why, if you think you might be a victim of discrimination, you often have to sue in order to get that information. In her particular case, she found no proof. That said, she couldn't have possibly known before the discovery process that it wouldn't be there. If she were sifting through the files to find breaches of irrelevant, outdated laws and regulations, that'd be a fishing expedition. In this case, the communications that were discovered were relevant to her (justified, because even though she wasn't able to prove gender discrimination, she did prove that, except for John Doerr, they were unprofessional and horrible toward her) grievance.

by Natsu 12y ago

pyre 12y ago

A big difference is that SCO spend years in "discovery" always claiming that some sort of evidence was just around the corner. The only reason that judges allowed that charade to go on was out of an extreme abundance of caution (probably too much). > Making claims one is unable to substantiate and dragging a case through discovery is normally considered an abuse of the legal system A judge can decide to kill said "fishing expedition" too. It's not like these fishing expeditions just "happen" and once initiated are unstoppable. If it was ludicrous, then the judge should have denied it.

Natsu 12y ago
Yes, but as your own post alludes, the judges didn't even shut down a SCO-level fishing expedition for... how many years was that? I lost track and I used to follow Groklaw daily. The fact that this got shut out so quickly simply points to the fact that there was essentially nothing to substantiate Pao's legal claims.

michaelochurch 12y ago

There's a difference between an unsuccessful lawsuit and a frivolous one (i.e. one without merit, intended to harm or extort). All evidence indicates that she made the claims in good faith. The purpose of discovery in these cases is that you don't know what has been said about you. That's why, if you think you might be a victim of discrimination, you often have to sue in order to get that information. In her particular case, she found no proof. That said, she couldn't have possibly known before the discovery process that it wouldn't be there. If she were sifting through the files to find breaches of irrelevant, outdated laws and regulations, that'd be a fishing expedition. In this case, the communications that were discovered were relevant to her (justified, because even though she wasn't able to prove gender discrimination, she did prove that, except for John Doerr, they were unprofessional and horrible toward her) grievance.