Holy Shit
If Uber were public I'd be shorting their shares like there's no tomorrow.
Taxi app turned lawsuit magnet Uber last week was sued by Donna Giacomaro, a resident of Levittown, New York, for text message harassment, in violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and New York state law. The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of New York, alleges that Uber last month began sending …
There are different standards of proof. So in civil court the judge or jury decide on the balance of proof, whereas in criminal trials it's beyond reasonable doubt.
Also juries aren't supposed to take any notice of whether you testify or not in criminal cases. I don't know if that's true of civil law.
So if you refuse to disclose documents and have similar tech to the company you just left, the civil judge/jury might well decide against you. Whereas for a criminal trial, that might not be enough to prove guilt. Given his company was valued at $700m, if he's nicked that data wholesale and discloses it to the civil trial, the case against him in a subsequent fraud trial is going to be rather easy to prove. Hence pleading the 5th.
That's not going to help Uber in this court case against Waymo. But presumably they can then sue him to get the money they paid for his company back, and then if he still refuses to reveal data, that helps them easily win against him. Unless of course they already knew the data was nicked, in which case, oh dear what a shame.
Not that my impression of Uber is of anything but a sack of bastards, but this being the USA (*), 39 civil lawsuits in just over six months doesn't sound like that much. Really, my question is why so _few_ people are suing Lyft in contrast.
(*) If my understanding of history is correct, this is a habit we inherited from Britain, so don't get smug yet.
The tradition in the UK was been that civil litigation risks such horrendous costs that only the rich and powerful could afford to sue. This has been loosened a bit more recently with small claims tracks nd contingency fee arrangements, but the US is still in a class of its own when it comes to suing anyone on a whim for anything - but we're catching up fast, unfortunately.
Up here frozen north, most SMS are 100% free nowadays.
And the litigation issue - is a result of 1) allowing legal beagles to advertise on prime time TV with terrorizing images (they are; you only need to see one or two) and 2) permitting legal beagles to do contingent fees. (we don't get paid till you get paid). Sadly -- the lawyers up here have gotten into that business as well.
(Late paying your taxes? CALL US NOW or the Government will seize your bank account, house, car, etc etc etc) -- things like that ... while this is technically true there is a *rather* long process to any of those seizures for an individual, and if you haven't a lawyer by that point you really really are deserving of everything that lands on your head.