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Games Entertainment

Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves 72

Posted by Hemos from the erp-oops-didn't-mean-to dept.
dex writes "The law firm of Milberg Weiss, lawyers for the plaintiffs in the Pokemon lawsuit, have discovered they are coporate counsel for one of the defendants. According to this article they will probably now be barred from participating on either side. " See the recent story about it on Slashdot.
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Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves More

Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves

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  • They have sued sportscards manufactures, as well as Wizards of the Coast before for this same thing. Actually, nine such lawsuits so far. They have yet to when a case based on these grounds (oddly, I suspect they get paid by their clients everytime anyways, so winning or losing probably doesn't matter. It's a niche market.)
    No, they do not get paid unless there is a settlement, then they take whatever they are allowed by the judge. Companies that settle with Milberg Weiss and the rest of these sleazy ambulance chasers just encourage them to keep going. [Not that I won't point this lawsuit out to my son who has become a nut over Pokemon. I'd like to encourage some perspective.]
  • They have sued sportscards manufactures, as well as Wizards of the Coast before for this same thing. Actually, nine such lawsuits so far. They have yet to when a case based on these grounds (oddly, I suspect they get paid by their clients everytime anyways, so winning or losing probably doesn't matter. It's a niche market.)

    You can find more here. [next-generation.com]
  • Its more media being blamed for stuff thats not its fault...school shooting blame doom.....Gambling addiction...blame nintendo ive never heard Matha Stewart being blamed for a teen baking a cake!
  • I work for a large law firm. We have what is called a "Chinese wall". This is simply a company wide statement and procedure for keeping the two lawyers in question away from each other and their case sensitive documents.
  • If you were trying to draw me into a flame war, you should have checked to see if I was a yank first, eh.
  • What I really want to know is this. Is m$ on that list of companies, and how many /.ers signed up?
    gearry
  • The difference here is that the total purpose of the Pokemon cards is to play a game--a gambling game, while the baseball cards are mainly there to collect.

    So long as they say "collectable," they're okay. But with the Pokemon cards, they're for a game, which makes it gambling.

    Honestly, the defense for this is the exact same as the one against gun control. The argument is that you're purchasing them for a different purpose, or that they're designed for a different purpose. While the physical consequences of card misuse aren't quite so severe as gun misuse, there are still psychological ramifications to consider.

    Personally I think the courts will agree with you that it's ridiculous. We're talking about a country that insists guns don't kill people, people kill people.

    But just because they think it's ridiculous doesn't mean the parents don't have a point. I mean, those Barbies, Tamagotchis, etc. are collectible too, but you don't see little kids trying to cheat eachother out of a rare one on the playground, do you?

    Maybe I'm just forgetful, but I don't remember anyone ever gambling over a Tickle-Me-Elmo..


    James
  • The game is Magic, with a 'c'. Yes, you collect the cards, and buy the cards, and play the game with the cards, and in the most pure form of the game, you win the cards also. (I have never seen anybody play for ante, it is very old school. I started playing in the third year of the game, I think that ante was basically dead by the end of the first.) However, most magic players are old enough to know that when they spend money on inherently worthless items, it is their own fault and not the fault of the gaming company.
  • Gobble Grabber??

    You mean THE HAMBURGLAR??!!

    PPoE
  • i mean whats next? Suing Id software for promoting school shootings?

    Actually, it's been done. I believe the parents of the victims of some school shooting or other sued just about everyone...including Id I believe.
  • Maybe I'm just forgetful, but I don't remember anyone ever gambling over a Tickle-Me-Elmo..

    You don't gamble with Pokemon cards. The closest to that was Magic where you have the option of playing for "ante". I don't think anyone ever does that anymore though. (When I played, I did, But then again I was playtesting with prototype magic decks before the game was released.) I gave away all my cards years ago (it got boring), I got curious a while ago and discovered that the cards I got rid of are worth thousands of dollars now. (shrug)
  • Doesn't that generally mean 'Legal Precedent?'

    Shouldn't this then be thrown out of court anyway?
  • I think we can look at this two ways. We have the issue of a possible illegal lottery. We have a lawfirm that is suing the company that is orchestrating this lottery.

    The situation here is whether or not they are doing it for the right reasons. Are they suing them to seek moral justification for a possible violation of the law? Or are they suing them to fill their own pockets?

    The evidence here suggests the latter. Accordingly, they are doing something right for the wrong reasons. For that reason, I cannot support their actions.
  • However, most magic players are old enough to know that when they spend money on inherently worthless items, it is their own fault and not the
    fault of the gaming company.


    Right! which is why I brought Magic into the discussion, because it shows that Pokemon isn't the only game to operate in this manner. It hasn't been, it isn't, and it won't be, which makes the whole situation even more ridiculous because that means that they have no basis for their suit. I think it should be thrown out of court. (not that I have a clue about Pokemon, other than it's about little animated looking animals, and I don't play it either, but that's another story altogether).

  • More information (Score:3)

    by ghazban ( 28784 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @03:10AM (#1659145) Homepage
    The info from the pokeleague is here [thedojo.com]. I posted it on the earlier story, though I doubt anyone read it.
  • I bet the lawyers at Weiss are kicking themselves in the ass. Imagine how much money they stood to make on the lawsuit. ESPECIALLY if they had both sides paying. Woo. Thank god for the Bar Association. Otherwise, the same law firm _would be_ on both sides of the lawsuit, raking the cash in.... that's THEIR only interest.
  • ...but this, this is beautiful. Now we have idiot vulture lawyers to go with idiot absentee parents - none of whom take any responsibility for anything. These aren't real lawyers, they're late-night ambulance chasers with delusions of grandeur. Schmucks, the lot of them.

    - -Josh Turiel
  • ...how many trees were sacrificed by the law firm just to get here. :)

    --

  • Have discovered? (Score:3)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @04:05AM (#1659150)
    I *love* how lawyers talk about "just discovering" a dual-agency representation as if they had just uncovered something they'd misplaced a long time ago.

    You *know* they knew it up front -- when was the last time a law firm went "Wait. Who are my clients again?" -- and you know they would do it as long as they felt they could get away with it.

    These kind of shennanigans shouldn't go unpunished. They should be forced to cede all of their billings for their newest client (in this case, the plaintiff) to whomever the plaintiff chooses as replacement counsel and at the hourly rate the new counsel charges, as well as deducting all billings accrued during the dual agency representation from their original client.

    Unless you slap lawyers on their wrists when they reach into the cookie jar, they tend to keep reaching into the cookie jar.

  • ...from a situation arising from the fact that too many kids have nothing better to do than watch a show with the animation quality of South Park and the plot depth of a cheap 50's sci-fi mini-series?
  • Check them out, http://www.milberg.com [milberg.com]
    Milberg Weiss has offices in New York, San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Boca Raton and is active in major litigations pending in federal and state courts throughout the United States. Follow the links on the left for the mailing address and directions to each of our five offices.
    When dealing with something that big, the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing isn't so crazy.

    But their "Join A Class Action" web application form has to be seen to be believed. They really do have a page with I am interested in participating in an action against the following company:, and a long selection box.

  • all lawyers are stupid until you are getting sued or in jail :)

    tyler

  • Bad Hemos.. (Score:4)

    by Kitsune Sushi ( 87987 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @03:48AM (#1659154)

    This has been covered already.. If you don't believe me, check this post [slashdot.org] on that "previous discussion".. It even includes the same link.. Ha! ;)

  • A subpeona waiting to happen (Score:4)

    by gnarphlager ( 62988 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @05:13AM (#1659156) Homepage
    Actually, this is standard practice now. I recently got into a car accident with myself, but it was really my fault, so I sued me. Sure, my driver's licence is chock full of red marks, but the money comes out of the insurance company's pocket anyway. And the returns are higher than my increased insurance premium, so I take home a little at the end of the day. I'm suing myself for abuse next ;-)

    Ah, the joys of MPD.

  • When the same law firm represents both sides on "Ally McBeal," there doesn't seem to be any problem. Hmmm... I'm starting to think maybe that show is a little unrealistic.

  • I'm left wondering if there isn't a way that Milberg Weiss could be sued by 4Kids for its actions (libel, etc., etc.), and maybe by the family who started the lawsuit (there has to be a law allowing damage recovery against legal services that have been paid by the competition not to provide proper counsel, which in a way they have. I would prefer they were disbarred, but I'm sure we aren't that lucky!). That would be sweet!

    These guys ought to read The Merchant of Venice. They were trying for two pounds of flesh, but like in the book won't receive even one.
  • it's The Mushroom [themushroom.com] that deals with gaming issues, in the spirit of The Onion.


  • I agree with you entirely, but you'll notice how in my previous posts I've been very circumspect about never calling certain lawyers unprintable names, or accusing them of being total bozos, or pointing out their utter incompetence, or claiming that they couldn't find their ass with both hands in a locked, lighted closet with a military GPS reciever.

    If I were to have done any of that, I might be sued. Fortunately, I'm clever and quick. They'll never find me making fun of them.

    :-)
  • I heard about that one. It wasn't the Columbine one, it was one of the shootings that preceded it.

    The thing about it is, the people in that one didn't care at all about justice. All they wanted was revenge and someone other than themselves to blame for the fact that they failed to instill a sense of right and wrong in their child.

    In other words, similar to what's going on with the Pokemon cards, only this incident fortunately has a much smaller body count (though the brain-cell count is staggering).
  • Should it be thrown out of court? Most definitely.

    Does it mean "Legal Precedent"? Actually, I'm not as certain. You see, one thing about baseball card manufacturers is that they don't typically divide their cards into common, uncommon, and rare like the game manufacturers do; they print more or less the same amount of every card (the value initially comes from factors other than rarity, and the rarity only comes long after the cards aren't printed anymore). That's probably the tactic the lawyers will use this time ("OK, so baseball cards aren't gambling, but...")
  • The difference here is that the total purpose of the Pokemon cards is to play a game--a gambling game, while the baseball cards are mainly there to collect.

    Nice, except for one thing: Pokemon is no more a gambling game than chess. Yes, with some of the older card games you played "for ante" (before each game each player picks a card at random from his or her deck and sets it aside; the winner keeps these cards). Pokemon was not designed to be played this way.

    Yes, some kids have created a variation of the game where you do play for ante. But this is not the way the game is meant to be played. If you go back to the original Gameboy game, the first rule of etiquette is that you never take another trainer's Pokemon; that rule spills over into the card game. People make side bets on other games, like golf and billiards, all the time; does this mean that those games should be illegal too? If not, then no one has any business screaming about Pokemon for that reason, because it is no different.
  • Yep. Made by the same company (Wizards of the Coast, now part of Hasbro) in fact. I used to play this game until I saw that it was nothing but a big money sink and stopped playing. I still have my old cards... mabye I should auction them on EBay and make a little $.
  • A design engineer died and arrived at the Pearly Gates. The gatekeeper, looking over his lists said "Sorry buddy you're name isn't on here, you're gonna have to leave." The sad engineer departed for hell.
    Resigned to his fate, he soon set about improving the living areas. Within a few weeks he had drafted plans and schematics for air conditioning, television, and refrigerators.
    A few weeks later, God calls up Satan and asks him how things are going.
    The devil replies "Great! We got this engineer and he's put in air conditioning, escalators and flushing toilets. Next month we begin construction of his prototype satellite TV system."
    God says "You have an engineer?! Send him back up here right away!"
    Satan replies "No way am I letting him go! He's on my board of director's now, and I'm keeping him."
    "No way, you can't do that. I'll sue!"
    The devil laughs uproariously, and says "Oh yeah, and where are YOU gonna get any lawyers??"
  • Yeah, but Wizards of the Coast has been through this already. And they're closer then anything else to this.. So there's the precedent.
  • ...according to my lovely wife, who works as a senior claims analyst for a national insurance company here [and has a disturbingly broad acquaintance with the civil law machinery]. It's a commonplace practice to do what is called a 'conflict search' when a big suit comes up, but sometimes it goes wrong, or just doesn't get done.

    It seems to me that there are only a very few real surprises in the practice of law...this is a very minor one.

    Token

  • But their "Join A Class Action" web application form has to be seen to be believed. They really do have a page with I am interested in participating in an action against the following company:, and a long selection box.

    Cool! I'm signing up for all of them! I might get lucky with 1 or 2 :)
  • without lawyers people wouldn't get sued

  • If I didn't know.... (Score:3)

    by Bob-K ( 29692 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @06:01AM (#1659172)
    "Pokemon Lawyers Sue Themselves"

    If I didn't know better, I'd think I was reading The Onion.
  • Isn't it funny when Slashdot readers are way ahead of the founders. =)

    I am reminded of a famous Gandhi quote:
    "There go my people: I have to go and run and catch up because I am their leader."

    How apt. Still ROFL.
  • Umm... not sure if you guys have been reading Slashdot for long, but the 'founders' of Slashdot don't do much in the way of digging up stories. The readers do. Thus, the readers are, by definition of the site, ahead of the founders.

    And yeah, sure, this particular story was mentioned in a message somewhere, but it seems big enough to warrant a post and a link to a news story about it.

    So quitcher bitchin. :)

  • I used to work for the network integration section of a certain phone company and no one there had any clue what their client list was. They knew who they had to send bills out to, but they had no idea if the bills were for services, or if they were billing them for a soda. So I do believe that it's 100% possible that this firm had no idea. Besides, what financial incentive would there have been for them to try it? Had the case gone to trial and this were discovered they would have been in a lot of trouble.
  • I find it absolutely ridiculous that a law firm, int the first place could possibly think they could sue Nintendo and co over gambling issues...i mean whats next? Suing Id software for promoting school shootings? This, to me, sounds like a *REALLY* bad episode of Ally McBeal.
  • These guys just seem like massive litigation machines. They probably believe that you can sue anyone and everyone at the drop of a hat. Every once and a while, they'll be right about something, and get a huge settlement. That settlement pays for all of their other suits, and they keep going.

    The downside to this is that our court system is now clogged with silly lawsuits. This just makes it harder for the occasional legitimate case to reach trial.
  • Are these guys for real? I assume they are going after *all* these companies. (Check here [milberg.com] for the list). What a terribly sad way to earn a living.

    It might be fun to join one of their class action suits. Then, when your claim is rejected on the grounds that you had no interest whatsoever in the action you could sue the balls off Milbergs for raising your hopes. That could be funny.

    I'm with Shakespeare (Henry IV) - "The first thing we'll do, let's kill all the lawyers."

  • What? Are you insane? Ally McBeal is a 100% true story...

    Why would FOX lie to us like that? No, if Ally can do it, so can the PokeyMan guys. Besides the gobble-grabber guy (whats-his-name) says that if both parties agree to it then they can do it!

    Whats a PokeyMan?
  • Lawyers at Wilmerg Beiss expressed dismay today that their own law firm would engage in a frivolous suit against one of their clients. They promised to counter-sue themselves for all legal expenses incurred.

    A top level firm member noted that they took their own allegations of immoral conduct by their client very seriously and were considering an action. The client's spokesperson noted that they were also thinking of a slander action, but thought it prudent to find new representation first, despite being quite impressed with the firm's flexibility.
  • Why should lawyers from the same firm not represent both parties in an action? Surely each laywer has a duty to his/her client, and the fact that the person acting for the other side has an office in the same building should not affect that. To think otherwise is question the professional integrity of the people concerned.
  • Conflicts like this happen all the time. A sensible law practice has procedures to ensure that they find out about them up front, though.

    Say I want to buy a house, I need a lawyer to represent me, and the seller needs one to represent him/her/it. When I go down to the Dewey, Screwem, and Howe law office, they get the particulars and then do a check to make sure they aren't representing the seller as well.

    Small firms pretty much know who is doing what, big firms with offices in several cities have some sort of process they follow to sniff out conflicts.

    Now if it's something easy and non-confrontational, like selling a house, both parties can agree to use 2 lawyers from the same firm. (In Canada, at least) A buddy of mine just bought some land. Both he and the vendor had known their respective lawyers for years, but
    the lawyers worked for the same firm. No problem, sign a form and everything goes ahead, they trusted their lawyers not to shaft them.

    Obviously in some situations (lawsuits!) that wouldn't work, so the second party has to go find a new lawyer.
  • A guy walks into a law office and said, "I need a lawyer -- I borrowed my neighbor's car, and now he says I damaged it and he's going to sue me if I don't pay him $2000."

    The head of the firm replied, "Don't worry. First, we will prove that you never touched this car. Second, we will prove that the car was already damaged when you took possession. Third, we will prove that the car was in perfect condition when you returned it."
    /.

  • The Bar Association supervises lawyers like boxing commissions supervise Don King.
  • Why should lawyers from the same firm not represent both parties in an action? Surely each laywer has a duty to his/her client, and the fact that the person acting for the other side has an office in the same building should not affect that. To think otherwise is question the professional integrity of the people concerned.
    Some people have described Milberg Weiss as shakedown artists. Many of the proposed class action settlements in the US give coupons to "victims" and millions to Milberg Weiss and their ilk. Do we question the professional integrity of people like this? Absolutely.
  • So long as they say "collectable," they're okay. But with the Pokemon cards, they're for a game, which makes it gambling.

    Nonsense. The Pokemon game is no more a gambling game than checkers or Monopoly. People might decide to bet on it, but that is extrinsic to the game itself -- if that counts, then all games (hell, all events) would constitute gambling.

    Personally I think the courts will agree with you that it's ridiculous.

    Great Ghu, I certainly hope so. Given some of the idiocy that has come out of the courts, it's not a foregone conclusion, though.

    We're talking about a country that insists guns don't kill people, people kill people.

    Yes, and it's also a country that insists that two plus two equals four and that the sun rises in the east.

    But just because they think it's ridiculous doesn't mean the parents don't have a point.

    The only points these parents have are in their hair. They're trying to find someone else to blame for the fact that they gave a little kid "thousands of dollars" to blow on these cards. I have very large collections of a few CCGs, but I doubt that the total I've spent is even $1000 (and, as a self-respecting adult, I would never dream of trying to blame somebody else if I decided that the money had been wasted).

    I mean, those Barbies, Tamagotchis, etc. are collectible too, but you don't see little kids trying to cheat eachother out of a rare one on the playground, do you?

    I understand that some schools have banned Pokemon cards because of problems with theft and bad-faith trading. The underlying problem is with the ill-behaved brats causing the problems, not with the Pokemon cards. Unfortunately, the former cannot be banned.
    /.

  • Re:Bad Lawyers... (Score:3)

    by sjames ( 1099 ) on Sunday September 26, 1999 @08:01AM (#1659191) Homepage Journal

    The downside to this is that our court system is now clogged with silly lawsuits.

    It seems we live in the decade of the speculative lawsuit. If that's not illegal gambling/lottery, I don't know what is.

  • My girlfriend is in law school, so I teased her about the "sign up online" form. She told me that these firms bringing class action suits are actually obligated to publicize the case (via newspaper ads, etc) in order to include all interested / qualified parties so that the subset of people who originally decided to complain aren't privy to "unjust enrichment" It makes sense for the legal system to get as many people as are interested involved up front because if the suit results in a huge award, other parties who might have been eligible will all bring suits of their own. Better to get everyone involved from the start in one large suit rather than twenty smaller ones. She wasn't sure the intention of these policies was to have web-based signup forms, but, hey, whatever. Law on the Internet...

    I'm not too big a fan of this lawyer crap, but I just thought I'd pass on some info that came my way.

    -Dan
  • Most good law firms (or at least law firms afraid of a malpractice suit) have conflict-of-interest software. Each time a new client attempts to hire the firm (or at least sue someone), it checks to see who the other clients the firm represents are and if the new client wants to sue them. Even in the "old days" most firms had a partner in charge of this stuff.

    It just goes to show that once again, it is the ambulance chasers who give the profession a bad name. Just plain sloppy.

  • "We have been prosecuting these alleged (Pokemon-related) gambling activities for the last several years," Weiss said. "When this matter came in as a potential additional case, apparently the conflicts check by the litigators did not pick up that the corporate side was representing 4Kids."
    Bold added by me.

    Isn't Pokemon less then two years old???

    These people make me so sick.


    Aaron "PooF" Matthews
    E-mail: aaron@fish.pathcom.com
    To mail me remove "fish."
    ICQ: 11391152
    Quote: "Success is the greatest revenge"
  • The laywers that found they were sueing thier own client, have dropped thier case (a couple days ago infact...) but other firms have chosen to pick up on such a "tempting" suit. For more up-to-date gaming news, pocket.ign.com [ign.com] is a good and reliable source


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