Anyone ever get letters from different lawyers?

[JUSTDOIT]

I just received a 1st letter from a Florida lawyer and last week got one from end user group. I purchased from 2 different raided places so I would assume thats why. Anyone else in similar situation or any suggestions. I was just set up to talk w/ lawyer next week. Now I feel really screwed!

[JUSTDOIT]

Wow am I the first and only person to have this happen to? Did anyone else at least hear of someone getting multiple letters from different firms like this? Really am just trying to figure out what approach to take. Just an iso was purchased from one place and the other some BL's and unlooper. Can you actually be wacked w/ a fine 2 times? Wonder if you settle w/ one then they can't come after you for the other.Any comments would be much appreciated.
Thanks

[Lager]

If you settle you should get them to include that your paying them covers any and all purchases made by you up until the date you settle with them. It's not a big suprise that you have gotten letters from two places, I have seen others say this happened to them as well. It doesn't appear that these leeches are sharing information with eachother. Now, on a side note. IF you settle with one of them, you could always hope the second one tries to sue you.

Lager

[Mindcrime]

your not the only one...I have received 2 from attny's in Tx, and now one from End Users Group....I ow have my own attny...lol

[JUSTDOIT]

Thanks guys . Almost sounds like it is best to settle w/ one of them and hope the other tries to sue then get them for breach of contract.

[JUSTDOIT]

Forgot to mention that I work in one state and live in another. I had one letter go to work and one go to the home address. I guess they do not have an overall database on end users.

[JD490]

Just goes to show you how little information they have. They hope you will settle. If you plan on settling I would ignore the end user group and deal with attorneys only. Attorneys have state bar rules they have to follow. They will be less likely to pull something on you. State bars take complaint's of lawyer misconduct very seriously. If they offer you somthing but its not signed yet then they change there minds before you send it back to them that would be a misconduct. End user group are not lawyers. I would quickly settle with the lawyers then send a cease and desist letter to everyone else. Explaining you have settled and they will be in breach of contract if they keep bothering you. I would not tell the lawyers you are getting any letters from end user group before you settle. They might try and up the settlement amount if they find you have 3 devices instead of the 1-2 they know about.

[JUSTDOIT]

Well I know for certain the End User is over 1 purchase from WV, do to the case #. The other is due to I beleive the only other place I dealt w/ that I purchased about 4 items from. Their is no case # associated with this letter from the Fl. attorney. I also can bet due to the higher # of purchases that the $$$ they want will be higher from the attorney.

[JD490]

Well then go with the 1 purchase. No doubt they will want $4500-6000 over the 4 purchases. You better work fast before they catch on. End user group will send you the standard agreement. This agreement does not say you are forgiven for past purchases, but does release you of all civil claims by DTV. It does say they won't release you from any activity they find out about after the date of the agreement is signed. The agreement is posted on legal-rights.org it has the subscription in it they will want $3000 if you want to subscribe or $3500 if you dont want to. Have an attorney look the agreement over before you sign.

[JUSTDOIT]

JD490 I get from reading the agreement that you "are" released from all past purchases once you sign. I take it as if you purchase/posess from the time agreement is signed then they can come after you again. I need my lawyer to definitely read this. Do you know if all agreements are the same in that they all state you are guilty or are there some that just state you agree to pay w/o assuming guilt?
Like if you realize it will take more to fight this than just pay them?

[condmca]

JustDoit,

I think you should do a heck of a lot more reading here before you so quickly decide to settle.
Basically you're admitting guilt before analyzing your situation.
Did you ever even figure out how to use an unlooper? Don't answer, you don't have to and you shouldn't. You should keep your mouth shut and have your lawyer get both cases dismissed.

Let your local lawyer advise you as to when to settle if ever.
GL!

[JUSTDOIT]

Con,
I have been reading my ass off, my friggin head hurts man!. I just got off the phone w/ my lawyer and we are going to get together next monday and sort out just what we are going to do. He is not familiar w/ Sat cases, but has done alot w/ blk boxes. I need to fill him in on some things to bring him up to speed and hopefully he will see things the way we all do, that Dave is strong arming us. I just ready to put this behind to tell you the truth. By the way got any directions on how to run one of those unlooper thingy's? ;)

[BubbaHill]

JUSTDOIT,
Just ask your lawyer to call one of these on legal-rights Org.
They will be able to bring him up to date what dave is doing,
and not doing. Also they should be able to tell him what dealer's
these letter's are coming from.

[JD490]

No doubt DircTV has little evidence to win any of these cases to start with. Its what can they find out when they sue you. Unless you are prepaired to LIE under OATH, or you didn't do anything what they said you have done. Settlement is where most of these cases end up. Either way it will cost you way more then 3500 to fight them in court. My attonry has told me we might win and we might not win much back in a counter suit if we are the winners in the first go around. Attorney fees are not a valid damage claim for defending a lawsuit. You will have to come up with other things. I suggested a quick settlement because he has purchased at least 5 devices that they know about. If he looses your looking at a 10k for each device. 50,000 in damages. DirecTV is counting on most adding up the costs and seeing 3500 as the cheapest way out. Don't worry about if your attorney has little experince in DirecTV cases. Make sure if you are going to fight that he has a lot of civil trial experenice in fedral court.

[38ford]

Why would you have to lie in court? The burden of proof falls upon D. They must prove their case independent of anything you might say. I'm reasonably sure any competent Attorney (I'm guessing there must be at least one or two of them) would never allow you to testify, especially if they know you will not be telling the truth. You have abosolutely no responsibility to testify or respond at all to their ridiculous claims.

[condmca]

Originally posted by 38ford
Why would you have to lie in court? The burden of proof falls upon D. They must prove their case independent of anything you might say. I'm reasonably sure any competent Attorney (I'm guessing there must be at least one or two of them) would never allow you to testify, especially if they know you will not be telling the truth. You have abosolutely no responsibility to testify or respond at all to their ridiculous claims.

Well Said 38Ford!

Being a Ford guy, you should champion the cause to boycott GM cars because of this GMH terrorist letter campaign ;-) ;)

If I may reitterate your point:
Don't offer any information to anybody for anything ever.
If somebody wants information from you badly enough they'll have to talk to your court appointed lawyer first. So why spend any money whatsoever against this frivolous lawsuit if you're not even worthy of a summons???

[BubbaHill]

In a civil suit the court's will not appoint a attorney
for you. This is only in criminal case.

[condmca]

Originally posted by BubbaHill
In a civil suit the court's will not appoint a attorney
for you. This is only in criminal case.

You're 100% correct BubbaHill. my bad :o

I was really just trying to convey the importance of not offering anybody any information for any reason ever, civil or criminal, until the court demands it or your attorney advises it.

[Sniperet]

These are civil suits. You will be deposed prior to the trial and you will have to testify or invoke the 5th amendment during the trial. It is not a criminal trial where you have the right not to take the stand. So if you are a tester you either lie in court or take the 5th. Soon as you take the 5th you lose the case. According to my lawyer this has already happened to several people in a CT case where Dave got $15k judgements against those who took the 5th. BTW any decent lawyer is not going to be a party to you providing false testimony and commiting fraud against the court. So if you are going to lie you need to start with your lawyer and it is usually not a good idea to lie to the guy who is defending you.

Everybody seems to think Daves lawyers don't have the right to ask you if you have ever stolen their signal, they do and they will and yes you do have the right to not incriminate yourself but invoking this right will surely cause you to lose your civil suit.

[Lager]

Uhh, you can't take the 5th in a civil case. Get a new lawyer.


Lager

[38ford]

It is true that as part of the discovery process you can be called upon to offer testimony either through written responses to a series of questions or orally in a sceduled meeting.

However, this can not be afishing expedition by the plaintiff. To questions you or your attorney find objectionable, ambiguous or vague, you may simply refuse to answer, or answer only to deny the allegations. If you have reached this point I assume your intention is to deny the allegations anyway, so there is probably no harm in making your statement here. Many civil cases are despositive upon deposition as the other side may well determine they do not have enough evidence to proceed. The court can also make this finding upon motion by one of the parties to the action..

If you refuse to answer a question it is the obligation of the other side to go back to the court to seek an order compelling you to answer. There they must make a showing that the question(s) is with merit (discoverable) and that you can or should be able to reasonably answer. If they lose this motion they may have to pay money penalties.

From the CA Code of Civil Procedures:

If the court determines that the answer or production sought is subject to discovery, it shall order that the answer be given or the production be made on the resumption of the deposition.

The court shall impose a monetary sanction under Section 2023 against any party, person, or attorney who unsuccessfully makes or opposes a motion to compel answer or production, unless it finds that the one subject to the sanction acted with substantial justification or that other circumstances make the imposition of the sanction
unjust.

[Retinula]

sniperet is correct.

unless you are willing to claim under oath that you never illegally intercepted DAVE's satellite signal then do not let him file suit against you and take you to court. and if you get caught lying your small problem becomes very BIG-- perjury, felony.

[38ford]

Surely you can't believe everybody tells the truth during a trial or deposition? If everyone told the truth in a civil trial there would be no need for a trial. The purpose of a trial is to present evidence of some sort of conduct that resulted in some sort of damge. If one side did not deny the allegations there would be no trial, only penalty hearings. What a trial comes down to is what can be proved. The key question in all of the cases we are interested in is;

Absent other information how can it ever be proved that because you MAY have ordered or owned a particular device you used it to program access cards and intercept proprietary signals?

They may or may not have this other information. Without proceeding through discovery no one will ever know. However, if all they have is the alleged purchase of a particular device I doubt they could ever proceed to trial. Unless, that is, they get a decision from a trial court someplace that possession (which they still have to prove) is defacto evidence of access card alteration and signal interception. A pretty big stretch in my mind.

I doubt seriously you will ever see criminal prosecutions eminate from any of these trials. Rather, the judge or jury will weigh the evidence and credibility of the various sources and find in favor of one party or the other and the case will be over.

[smegma]

from what little I think I might know, if anything at all, it does not appear that any of the end user cases are making it to the discovery phase. Every claimant is dissmissed with or without prejudice. The humorous part of the "Lie in court scenario" is that the multitude of claims made in the summons (or at least the letters) include numerous false statements. The identical accusations are made against everyone with reckless abandon of truth. In light of this, it is unlikely that the courts will be given the opportunity to make a final judgement concerning what the "truth" may be.
If a litigant does not believe, or feel, or want to admit that he/she was stealing a signal then perhaps it is only a difference of opinion rather than a lie. This is pretty much why you have two sides to a court case and a judge.
If one of these end user cases were ever to make it to the discovery phase, it would be much more difficult for the plaintif to make good on the numerous unsubstantiated claims based soley upon a purchase order, then it would be for the defendent to simply stand firm in his denial, or explanation, or lack of recollection, or ...
The bottom line when it comes to dollars and cents is that if you are in court you probably already lost something, but wouldn't it be interesting to know what the outcome for the typical "pro se" defendant has been.