• thejml@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I’m guessing they claim that if no one brought the fact up and tried to sue them, it would have been swept under the rug and no one would care because everyone would have forgotten… which is dumb, but sorta makes sense. People have short memories and attention spans.

    No fault means they agree to pay the fee as a shortcut to getting rid of the case, because they feel it’s cheaper for them to do so than to drag out the case… a case which MIGHT dig up some other unrelated but super juicy bits they don’t want the public to see.

    As an example, let’s say Google tries to bring you to court claiming that you stole the lunch money from their employee one day. It’s like $100. But they’ve got pretty darn good lawyers, and a huge bankroll for them and you’re lucky to have your own lunch money. You say you didn’t do it, they say you did. Clearly this is going to be a huge cost for you to incur, including multiple potential years of court work, lawyer fees, missed work, bad press for you, and who knows what else. Maybe the last 20yrs of tax returns. Maybe some terrible investments people can scold you over again, etc. They agree that if you pay them $20, they’ll call it off but it won’t be a guilty plea that would go on your record as stealing. So you pay the $20, and everyone moves on. It worked out for you because you didn’t get a permanent mark on your record and waste all that time and whatever else it would have exposed and it worked for them because they got the $20.

    Which sounds kinda like legal extortion in a way… hmm.

    • BertramDitore@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      As I was reading this I was like, “hmm sounds like extortion.” And yup! That’s where you landed heh. My naive idealism really shows in cases like this. I hate that huge amoral corporations can get out of taking real responsibility by scrounging up their pocket change and calling it a settlement (cough… payoff). But that’s capitalism I guess.