How to Think About Litigation
John:
Hey everyone, this is John Di Giacomo and you are listening to the May it Please The Internet podcast. And I’m joined as always by my business partner, Eric Misterovich. Hello, Eric.
Eric:
Good afternoon, John.
John:
And today we’re talking about litigation, which is the fun part of being a lawyer and the not so fun part of being the client of a lawyer. Eric, I’ll let you start it off. What do you want to talk about?
Eric:
So I was thinking about what should we talk about today. I was faced with a client call earlier this week and they signed a contract, they sold their business. Things have since gone bad and they’re contemplating suing the other party. And they asked me this really fair question in their mind of, “Am I going to win? If I file this lawsuit, will I win?”
And as we know the answer to that is very complicated. It’s usually not even the right question. And it just kind of struck me as the real disconnect that can be there for people that are facing maybe civil litigation for the first time, being a plaintiff or the defendant for the first time and not understanding the game that’s being played in court and how litigation works and the things that can happen, the pressures that kind of force decisions and actions and the whole process of litigation is just such an unknown if you haven’t been through it, that I thought would be interesting just kind of talk about it, big picture and how it works. The things that come up and really the ideas and what you want to think about if you are considering filing suit against someone.
John:
I think that’s a great topic this morning. I had somebody email me about a ADA, Americans with Disability Act lawsuit, over a website. They had been sued in California and they wanted to know how to resolve it today. And of course, as you and I know, it’s virtually impossible to do that. But then comes the slew of emails that say things like, “Well, I Googled and the ADA only applies to companies that have employees of 15 or more. Is that get me out of the case?”
And as you know, there’s all these kind of misconceptions that there’s a quick and easy way out of litigation, but in reality, litigation is messy. It’s long, it’s expensive and it’s tough. And so I think that’s a great topic to go through. Let’s talk big picture. I mean, what do you think people should know about the kind of general concepts of litigation as a tool to resolve disputes?
Eric:
Well, what I always tell people is litigation is long, slow and expensive. It is a terribly inefficient way to solve a problem, right. You have some kind of issue. You can’t make progress, file suit, and you have to know that the lawsuit’s going to take a long time. Nothing’s going to happen overnight in most cases. And you have to really think about is this worth it. And to be able to make that calculation, you really have to understand the mechanics and the procedure. Most of the time when you’re really forced with a lawsuit, it’s kind of a set of facts where either I’m so in the right and this person is so in the wrong that I want to sue them because I think I have a very high likelihood of winning. Or it is, I need this. It’s vitally important that this go my way and I don’t have any negotiation options here.
And most of the time you’ve hit a dead end, right. You’ve hit a dead end with the other side. You’ve likely tried to reach out. I mean, I think most of the time we would say, “Let’s try to avoid a lawsuit. Let’s see if it can be solved without that process.” And it’s failed and we’ve reached an impasse and we have no other problem. The most extreme is you get this last resort situations where it’s all online, like “This is it.” The people have either infringed on your rights so badly or stolen your information or trade secrets that you have to do this in order for your business to continue. And so you’re kind of doing this math of is this worth the investment knowing what’s on the line, right. That’s kind of the first issue is, what am I fighting for? What’s on the line and is this the only way to get it?
John:
Yeah, I would add one other category, which is people who are just generally pissed off. I mean, we have a number of people that will come to us and say, “I want to sue.” And you ask, “Well, what is the business justification for the lawsuit?” And there is none. “What is the strategic outcome goal of the lawsuit?” There’s not really a major one. It’s simply, “I want to do this because I’m pissed I’ve been wronged.” And those are really the worst cases. And so in those scenarios, we try to walk people back and rationally think about what litigation looks like and why it’s such a bad idea to react emotionally in, quickly get into litigation. And I think one of the big things that causes problems is timing. How long does litigation take? We mentioned that it’s a long and slow process, but Eric, what kind of time can you expect for a lawsuit?
Eric:
Super general numbers, 18 months. If you’re saying a case is going to start and end in a trial, 18 months to two years, depending where you file, right. If you are in state court in California, it’s probably going to be a lot longer, right. If you’re in federal court in Michigan, 18 months to two years is probably a reasonable estimate for start of the complaint to last day of trial.
John:
And that changes certainly with jurisdiction and with whether it’s state or federal, like you said. Jurisdiction wise, Eastern District of Virginia, you’re probably looking at just a few, six months maybe. Somewhere else like San Diego, California is notoriously slow or Los Angeles County. You’re looking probably at two, sometimes three years, and it’s a long and slow and painful process. And it’s also expensive like we had mentioned before. Why is it expensive? What are the things that drive costs in litigation?
Eric:
There’s a lot for attorneys to do. You only get one shot at a lawsuit, right. So you have to bring all the claims that you have. So for an attorney, you have to get up to speed on the facts. Part of the fun being an attorney is you get to dive into these worlds that you have no experience in. And you learn everything about that industry, whether it’s machines that make orthopedic shoes or refrigeration components in air compressors, you learn everything about these products and about that industry. And then you apply the facts of what’s going on to the law, but for us to get up to speed, we have to know the entire history of what’s happened. So there’s a lot of pre-suit investigation. If you’re really going to take this seriously, that has to be done.
And then there is court rules and procedures, right. There’s timing, and a kind of cadence to a lawsuit that has to be followed and these deadlines matter and they count. And so you have to constantly stay on top of things in order to meet these, fact finding, that discovery, heart, even just pre-suit, not even getting into the discovery and depositions and document review and all that just can really eat up time. There’s a lot of time to get the attorney up to speed. And then there is a lot of time in fighting off claims, right. Most lawsuits are going to have a lot of emotions. Practice in the early days, drafting and responding to these motions takes up a lot of time. If you’re getting into depositions and things like this, it takes an in incredible amount of time to prepare witnesses for depositions, to help them understand how to answer and understand what’s going on. It’s a mix of understanding the facts, getting everyone on the same page and then playing within the rules of the court and things be done on a certain timeline.
John:
The depth of knowledge that has to be learned in a lawsuit is quite frankly amazing. I have a friend and you know him, Joel, who used to practice medical malpractice defense. And he made a comment once where, we were about to have our second child. And he said something like, “Well, don’t worry. I’ll just deliver her, it’s fine.” Because he had so much experience in defending against malpractice claims against OBGYNs that he had the medical knowledge needed to ensure a safe and effective delivery.
But it’s true. It’s a deep dive into every aspect of the subject matter and the stages of a lawsuit too, come with associated costs. So there’s this first stage of the filing of the complaint, the filing of the answer or a motion to dismiss, and initial steps to kind of coordinate the calendars of the parties involved that is overseen by a judge or a magistrate judge that feels really structured.
And so it gives you this idea that a lawsuit has some sense of logical structure to it. And then the rule 26 conference rolls around, which is the discovery conference. And all of a sudden everything falls off the rails because then the judge just leaves you to your own devices. There are disputes between the parties, those have to be worked out between the parties. So what happens is you end up with this kind of gamesmanship in exchanging documents and producing information and producing witnesses for deposition where you don’t really want to go to the judge. But at some point you’re going to probably have to go to the judge for some relief. And that relief is usually like, we need them to produce documents, or we need somebody to show up for a deposition. And that creates a number of side shows that are, while not vastly substantive and don’t ultimately help the merits of the case in substantial way, are necessary and also extremely costly.
So there’s this middle period where there’s a deep lead of cash because a lot of money and time is spent on things that are not really well structured. And then it all comes back around when you file a motion for summary judgment and you pull all that information together and then the judge gets back involved and reviews the case, at that point you’re well on your way to trial. So then you’re in the most costly portion. So it’s not a great process for resolving disputes and it is certainly a last resort. What other pressures play a role in litigation?
Eric:
Why cases start, why cases end? Many times, yes they have reasons to do what the actual lawsuit, but a lot of times there’s completely different reasons in the background that are pushing a party to go one way or the other. If we have a corporate client that is pursuing some kind of infringement claim, but then the CEO leaves and a new CEO comes in and he or she looks at this case and either says, “Double down on it,” or says, “Why are we doing this?” So changes internally within a company. You can have a company facing pressures from investors to either get out of a lawsuit. You can have people that are potentially looking at selling their business. And the last thing they need floating around is a lawsuit to disclose to potential buyers. You can have personal issues, right, where lawsuits really can take a toll on people.
I mean, some people are very comfortable operating in a space where there’s pieces of litigation floating around. They’re talking to us a lot. We are asking them to produce incredible amounts of electronic information and they’re completely fine with that. Other people, it really takes a toll on them and they don’t enjoy it at all. It is really frustrating. It’s keeping them up at night and that is perfectly okay to put into the mix of, should this lawsuit continue or not? I mean, I tell people all the time, you have to value your peace of mind. You have to value the distractions that this lawsuit causes, not just from personal level, but also to your business. When you’re talking to us, you’re not doing whatever it is you’re supposed to be doing, right. You’re doing the opposite of it. And that hurts your overall growth in business. So there’s all of these things that go into the mix rather than just the law.
John:
I think that the personal component of being involved in litigation cannot be stressed enough because it is very stressful. I was in litigation. You represented me several years ago. And I remember sitting in a room going through financial documents with my wife and us just swearing at each other. It’s just completely miserable. And it has formed the way that I approach disputes that we have with contractors. When we have disputes over someone not providing a service to us or whatever it might be because that emotional component and that level of stress that was involved in litigation was so sufficient that it has changed the way that I analyze the value of solving things with money versus solving things with time and stress.
And I think when you’re getting into litigation, you have to consider those factors because there is the time value of money. There’s also the time value of time, just having the ability to do something else with your life and not be consumed by litigation is highly, highly valuable.
So let’s talk about the procedure. We talked a little bit about kind of the complaint summons and answer in motion to dismiss, but let’s go more deeply into what the mechanics of that look like. Can you talk through that some?
Eric:
Yeah. So this is kind of the rundown I give to clients when we’re talking about starting a lawsuit or defending a lawsuit, is the first thing you get is the summons and complaint. The summons is just a piece of paper stamped by court that says you have to respond to this complaint. And the complaint is just a word document that has numbered paragraphs, right. One through 100. Each paragraph is a separate number. And each paragraph is supposed to kind of allege a fact about the case. So for example, you could say plaintiff is John Di Giacomo, resides within Traverse City, Michigan, period, right. That’s an allegation. So you lay out the background of the parties. You lay out the background of why the case is in that specific court. And then you can just lay out the facts of what happened, party A signed contract with party B on June 1st and it’s attached as exhibit one.
You walk through the contract and the allegations and what went wrong, who did what, and then ultimately those facts support your causes of action. So you could have breach of contract, then you kind of repeat the elements of what makes up that claim and the facts above it provide the support for that claim. And when you hear about complaints in the news, you always hear, “Oh, someone’s being sued for 75 million.” And it’s always kind of a joke for attorneys to see that because those are made up numbers. They’re completely made up. Anyone that puts like a specific demand amount within a complaint is doing it to scare the other side or for media attention. There’s no basis, you’re not required to do that. You’re only required to allege damages are of a certain amount to be within a certain court.
And so there’s a lot of games, people play. I think the most frustrating thing about explaining a complaint and how it works to someone is when you get a complaint, it’s going to be one side of the coin. It’s one side story of what happened. And if you’re the defendant and you read this complaint and you say, “Well, that’s not true. That’s not how it happened. This isn’t true.” And then the client comes to us and says, “Well, what do we do about that?” John, what’s the answer when you have a client say, “None of this stuff is true within the complaint. How do we fight it?”
John:
There is no answer. I mean, there is this idea of litigation privilege where you can say whatever you want. There’s a wonderful example recently of a relative is going through a divorce. And in the complaint for divorce, there is a line about this individual being an alcoholic or having some drinking problem. And I just reviewed it and I laughed uncontrollably because this, I had known this person my entire life. And the last thing that he or she would do is drink. And the first thing that I get asked is, “What can I do about it?” And the answer is really nothing. And that it’s unfortunate because this litigation privilege allows a attorney to make false defamatory statements about you in a pleading without really facing any consequences.
Now, if the content is overly scandalous, then you can file what’s called a motion to strike to have that text removed, but that’s going to cost you money. It’s in most cases, generally a waste of time. A lot of cases it’s not successful. So it’s a frustrating process. And it’s something that a party that has been sued should keep in mind because it’s really meaningless words. I mean, the judge is not going to look at that complaint and think, yeah, they’re a horrible person. Judges know. They’ve done this long enough where they’re not going to be swayed by the initial pleadings of the parties. I mean, don’t you agree, Eric?
Eric:
Yeah. I mean, the complaint starts the lawsuit. It doesn’t end it. It has to kind of check the box on saying enough facts to state a claim. So it has to have factual allegations that support there was a contract, they agreed to it, the contract said, “X person, A did not do X, and now I’ve suffered damages.” Right, if you can plead those things within a complaint, then you’ve established a breach of contract. And when you say people can kind of say anything, one of the tough things is if you wanted to fight that initial complaint with a motion to get rid of it, say a motion to dismiss this complaint, the legal standard you’re up against is assuming everything is true. Literally the court looks at the complaint and the standard the court has to follow is, I’m going to assume everything in here is true.
So when you are or have these factual disputes, like what color was the light when I went through it, and one side said it was red and the other side disagrees, you cannot fight about that in the initial part of a lawsuit. And that’s another reason why lawsuits are expensive because the time to fight about that is way later after you’ve done depositions and review, gotten all the evidence out in the case. And so in the initial phases, even if there’s things that are incorrect, the court is going to presume those things are true and allow the case to continue. There’s of course exceptions. But for the most part, you’re stuck with what the complaint says in terms of what does that fact help support a certain cause of action.
John:
And that’s another strategic fact that attorneys play with. So the example I gave earlier of the ADA lawsuit, part of the reason why I can’t respond to that client and say, “I’ll take care of that for you. We can get it resolved this week by filing a motion to dismiss,” or whatever it might be, is because of that standard that the allegations in the complaint are accepted as true. And based on those allegations, have they stated a claim as a matter of law? And the answer is always yes, because attorneys are smart. So what they do is they play this game where if they can get past the pleading stage, they know the cost of the…
Eric:
Yeah, and there’s all kinds of different lawsuits. I mean the ADA stuff, our audience is probably pretty familiar with that, where there’s a few law firms around the country that are suing, e-commerce stores for having a website that allegedly violates the ADA by not having certain features for visually impaired people. And they file these complaints or threatened to file the complaints. And like you said, you can’t just get out of it right away. The cost of defense immediately is more than what they want to settle. So in those kinds of cases that we’re going to assume everything is true is really troubling because it forces you into a settlement in less troll-ey kind of cases. It’s a problem because the client just it’s so foreign to have this court just assume the other side is right, right away. And that’s not really what the court’s doing. It’s just, this is how lawsuits start is, they have to plead facts. If those facts end up being wrong and you have other facts, you’re going to win. It’s just going to happen a lot later in the case.
John:
Well, let’s talk a little bit about discovery. I mean, we touched on it quite a bit before, but what do you think is useful for the audience to know about this process about exchanging documents and depositions and all the other fun stuff that comes within this kind of large amorphous stage that happens in the middle of a lawsuit?
Eric:
It’s probably a lot more intrusive than you think it’s going to be. It’s probably going to be a much bigger pain in the ass than you think it’s going to be. It’s going to take up a lot of your time and there’s going to, like you said earlier, there’s going to be a substantial spend on the discovery portion of the case. So right away for the businesses we generally work with who are operating all online, all of your documents are going to be electronic, but that doesn’t mean they’re super easy to locate. And so generally, what you end up having to do is depending on the claims of the case, you usually end up finding the custodians of certain data that have the most relevant information. And so it could be emails on a certain topic, right. So if there’s an issue regarding the infringement of a certain mark, like how a creative or marketing team came up with or when they started using a certain mark, would be more relevant to find out than say talking to the bookkeeper as to that specific matter.
So you have to collect that data. We often use a third party to kind of assist in this process and get that data into another system. And then all of that data has to be sift through and we have to go in tag, organize all of those emails. And so we’re reading a lot of emails, we or kind of third parties that help in initial document review. So it is pretty intrusive. I don’t think people really expect to be handing over their entire email box to us, but that certainly can happen.
John:
And the deposition part of the discovery is also equally as intrusive. I mean, we’re talking not just a day where you show up and someone asks you questions in a room. It’s many times, days of prep before, it could be fights within the room in which the deposition is occurring. It’s not an easy process. So it’s something that if you can avoid it in your life, you’re better off for it.
Eric:
God, you’ve never gotten into a fight during a deposition [inaudible 00:25:10] attorney. What are you talking about?
John:
So there’s a court rule in Michigan that I was in a deposition against my former law firm. And we were representing a client against the client that they were representing. And there’s a part of the Michigan rules that allow you to record a part of the deposition without having any kind of formal, a court reporter there or whatever it might be.
And I remember us getting into a massive fight in the middle of the deposition because the client had written something down that had since become discoverable information. I didn’t want to disclose it. And we were fighting over it and I called Eric and I’m like, “What do you think I should do about this?” And so Eric pulls this rule out of nowhere and says, “Just slam your phone on the table and tell them that you are going to record everything that you’re talking about so that you can take it to the judge.” And so I did, I slammed my phone on the table. I’m like, “I’m taking this to the judge,” and I added, “And I’m getting it certified,” which Eric, I have no idea what the hell a certified question is at this point in deposition. But man, it is really fun to use it because everybody starts to get squirrely in the room.
Eric:
Yeah, no one knows, it’s not a thing as far as I can tell. But what you’re recording though is in a transcript, you don’t get tone. You can’t hear how questions are being asked. You can’t really get a hundred percent a clear picture of what’s going on if it’s not being video recorded. And so attorneys can be complete jerks during these depositions and they’re harassing the client and they’re making them feel terrible and they’re not being professional and it’s a way to counter it because now there’s everything, you can hear everything. You’re not just relying on a transcript. And I mean, it seemed to work. I don’t even remember how I found that. I had never heard of it before but it worked I think.
John:
It did work. The fighting stopped and everyone went on their merry way and proceeded with the deposition. And ultimately the case was resolved, but depositions are brutal. And like I said, there’s something to be avoided if you can.
There’s also this idea of corporate depositions, which are equally time consuming. So under the federal rules, there’s a provision called rule 30)(b)(6), where you can designate a series of questions to be answered by a corporate representative. And then if you are on the side of the party that has to produce a deponent or a person to answer those questions, you have to go within your organization and find the people with that information and then get a single individual or multiple individuals up to speed to show up for this deposition and testify. And it takes time and it takes practice. And it’s just a lot of work and it’s really disruptive to your organization because while somebody in accounting may have information on what the damages might be, someone in marketing is going to have information on how the trademark was created. It’s just not an easy process.
Eric:
Discovery generally, let’s call it six months of discovery, but very routine to have that stretch out to eight or nine months and it’s burdensome. It is really can take a toll on all parts of your business. It’s a huge, huge expense. A big portion of any litigation cost is fighting about this. All of the stuff that comes up in discovery and all of the just other costs. I mean, extracting and handling all that data alone is a huge cost. And then the depositions, if you have five to 10 depositions to take in a case, the prices are going to be really high quickly. The price part of this is something that we’re talking about it a lot. I think we spend a good deal of our time telling people not to pay us because we know and have done, have litigated so many cases, that we know you’re not going to be happy in six months if you proceed with this case.
I hear all the time, John, I know you have to, “Oh, I’d rather pay you than pay them.” And it’s all right, great. Congratulations, you’re not the first one that came up with that statement. We’ve heard it 50 times. And when we’re sending you $30,000 a month bills and it’s month five of that, you’re not going to want to be paying us either unless you’re prepared, unless you really know what’s going on. But just because you have this kind of ego at the beginning that says, “I’m going to win, I’m going to pay money either way. I’ll pay you.” I get it. It’s understandable. It’s very normal to have that kind of frame of mind, but you probably won’t have that frame of mind in six months because you’ll say, “All right, it’s been six months, where are we at?” And we’re going to say, “Oh, we got a long way to go. We’re not close to being done. We got a long way to go.”
John:
That’s absolutely right. I mean, the “I’d rather pay you, not them,” is hilarious when you’re not even 30 days in, but it starts to get really annoying and old when there’s no return on investment. I mean any other thing that you’re doing for your business, you should be looking at these things from a return on investment perspective. And while we try to tell people not to spend money with us, it’s mostly because we don’t want you to be angry with us. And severe of the relationship that we’ve built over many years advising you successfully, when this ultimately is not a great idea. It’s not a great return on investment for you. And it’s something that probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Eric:
Unless you have a pretty clear cut case of, “Hey, they were supposed to pay me X. They didn’t pay me.” By the way, no case is ever that clear cut. But I’d be concerned if your attorney’s rushing to sue people because it’s suing people is a big decision and you really should make sure you understand everything you’re getting into before you get into it.
I mean, sometimes the threat of that lawsuit hanging out there has value. Once the lawsuit’s on, you’re kind of restricted by the court rules and procedures and things have to start moving and you don’t really have a choice. And so before that lawsuit’s filed, it’s vitally important to make sure you understand the costs, the timing, and taking that personal part out of it. And your attorney, people ask me advice on hiring an attorney, I usually say, “It should cost more than you want it to cost. And they should be telling you things you don’t agree with.” Those two things are happening, then you probably have a good attorney. If you’re just being fed everything you want to hear, and the bills are super reasonable, something’s going to change later and it’s not going to go your way.
John:
You’ve got a salesperson. You don’t have an attorney. An attorney is intended to advise you even in the most difficult circumstances and tell you the truth and someone who tells you what you want to hear is a salesperson. It’s just not the same role.
So we’ve talked about summary judgment a bit. So I don’t think we need to go over that again. I think most people know what a trial looks like, but I think it’s really important to talk through what happens after trial. And that is, what do you do with a judgment? Because everybody thinks, I’m going to win this case, I’m going to win this case, I’ve got a judgment. And then the next step is like, “Okay, what do I do now?” Well, Eric, what do you do with a judgment? What do you do next?
Eric:
You have to collect. You have to collect on it. So let’s say you made the decision, you invested it in the case, you win all the way through and you won. Now you have a piece of paper that says, “Defendant owes you X number of dollars.” Well, that’s all you got. You have to go collect on that money now.
We had a case together that we litigated for a long time, we went through a trial. Actually, we didn’t talk about the appeal part of this. You could have all this and then tack on another year, year and a half, two years, worth of appeal periods. And we had a case, went to trial, went to appeal at the Court of Appeals, won. They appealed to the Supreme Court in Michigan. They lost. And then we called them and said, “All right, when are you cutting the check?” And they said, “We’re not.” I said, “What are you talking about?”
It was a public corporation. It was a village or township. And so it’s like, “You can’t just not pay your bill though.” Well, that’s what they did. So collections is a whole nother process. It’s essentially a whole nother lawsuit that you have to do. And you can invoke eventually relief from the court to garnish money out of people’s bank accounts or out of their tax returns to seize their property and things like that. But the judgment isn’t always the end of the case. And that’s something that has to be carefully analyzed at the very beginning. Are you ever going to be able to collect if you win?
John:
Yeah. I agree entirely. I have a case right now that I’m doing for a friend, maybe he’s listening to this. It’s a small claims action. He got a judgment and we teed it up for what’s called a debtor’s exam. And a debtor’s exam is this process where you can force the party who you have a judgment against to come into court and tell you where their bank accounts are, where their assets are. And this friend is very upset with me because we can’t get this person served. And he is like, “What do you mean you can’t get them served? It’s a six months things.” Because we need to collect and get them to come in and tell us where everything is. And in order to do that, we have to get them served. So there’s all these dumb hurdles that occur after a lawsuit that no one really thinks about when you go to enforce this judgment.
Another one is, there’s a local guy here who’s a court officer and we had a judgment in a case and I handed it over to him and I’m like, “Go to this address and take this property. I know it’s there.” And he’s like, “I know this guy, I think he’s going to pay. Let’s just give him couple weeks.” I’m like, “No dude, go to the address, take the property and we’re going to sell it.” And he’s like, “No, I’m not going to do that.” And so people just don’t realize how difficult this process is. And it’s a little bit better in federal court because federal judges are more strict. They’re very much by the book, but it is something that has to be thought about when you’re looking at what is the goal and what is the ultimate outcome of this lawsuit because it’s a long and hard road even after you get a judgment.
Eric:
I think we could do a whole episode on process servers and all the problems that come up with them, it’s amazing what seems to be the most simple part of this is not. You run into roadblocks and problems in almost every step along the way. And the reality is in order to win, you have to do every step right. And that’s why things take so much time and end up costing a lot of money.
John:
Yeah. And so the question isn’t will I win, is it. What is the question?
Eric:
The question is not, will I win? I always tell people, “Hey, will you win? Well, you will get that answer after 12 to 18 months, maybe two years worth of litigation. That’s the only time you’ll know if you’ll win.” So the question is more, what is the leverage? How much is it going to cost you to prosecute? How much is it going to cost them to defend? Where are the risks on both sides? Is this worth the investment taking into account your peace of mind, the distraction that’s going to cause for your business. It is putting all of that in a big shaker and trying to figure out what is the right answer. So it’s not, will I win. It is do I understand what is going to happen in this lawsuit, is probably the better question. And that answer like we’ve just shown is pretty complicated.
John:
Absolutely. Well, thanks, Eric. This is again, is the May it Please The Internet podcast. Thank you for listening.
