Author here. Thanks for all the comments, I've been hesitant to post this to the court of public opinion, yet curiosity about what the HN community would think caused me to push the button. My lawyers - who were really excellent - represented me (on contingency!) because it seemed the chance of a judge not accepting a motion to dismiss (for a variety of reasons I don't want to detail here) was non-zero. And the process of discovery would be very costly for NVIDIA with depositions from many executives who have better things to do.
> And the process of discovery would be very costly for NVIDIA with depositions from many executives who have better things to do.
You're almost certainly either misrepresenting or misunderstanding what your attorneys told you.
You would never get to discovery with your complaint. If you sued, NVIDIA would win a motion to dismiss in federal court based on your claim being time-barred.
You have no basis to support decades-long tolling. The possibility that, say, NVIDIA knew what it told you was wrong 30 years ago is not good enough under federal pleading standards to get you to discovery. You would need sufficient evidence to support a claim that NVIDIA intentionally lied, which you obviously don't have otherwise you would have mentioned it in your post.
State court (California) has a few wrinkles but the result ends up being the same.
Basically the legal system is designed to prevent fishing expeditions on decades-old claims. You cannot have possession of an agreement and then run to the courts asking for a billion dollars because you failed for three decades to read it carefully.
If you are past the statute of limitations, the bar is intentionally virtually impossibly high.
As I understand it they thought there was a chance Nvidia would settle, since the lawyers worked on contingency instead of telling him not to waste his time
By this guy's account, his attorneys sent and responded to a number of letters and arranged for a meeting with NVIDIA counsel. So you have to put it in context: this didn't demand a whole lot of time and effort, and they never actually filed a lawsuit.
From the looks of it, this firm primarily works on contingency, so it's not like they were doing anything out of the ordinary. They took a flyer on his "case" on the off chance that some correspondence might lead NVIDIA to throw a few bucks at this guy.
Eric_Gullichsen · · focus · HN ↗
ElProlactin · · focus · HN ↗
You're almost certainly either misrepresenting or misunderstanding what your attorneys told you.
You would never get to discovery with your complaint. If you sued, NVIDIA would win a motion to dismiss in federal court based on your claim being time-barred.
You have no basis to support decades-long tolling. The possibility that, say, NVIDIA knew what it told you was wrong 30 years ago is not good enough under federal pleading standards to get you to discovery. You would need sufficient evidence to support a claim that NVIDIA intentionally lied, which you obviously don't have otherwise you would have mentioned it in your post.
State court (California) has a few wrinkles but the result ends up being the same.
Basically the legal system is designed to prevent fishing expeditions on decades-old claims. You cannot have possession of an agreement and then run to the courts asking for a billion dollars because you failed for three decades to read it carefully.
If you are past the statute of limitations, the bar is intentionally virtually impossibly high.
Rastonbury · · focus · HN ↗
ElProlactin · · focus · HN ↗
From the looks of it, this firm primarily works on contingency, so it's not like they were doing anything out of the ordinary. They took a flyer on his "case" on the off chance that some correspondence might lead NVIDIA to throw a few bucks at this guy.