Sequels strife

[2-23-6]

Anything new? I have to sue someone myself, so it reminded me of this thread.

[Elestan]

Anything new? I have to sue someone myself, so it reminded me of this thread.

Nope. Not likely to be any major news until October.

[Borgie]

What happens in October? Or was that an arbitrary date? (And why does this feel like a pun?)

[Elestan]

What happens in October? Or was that an arbitrary date? (And why does this feel like a pun?)

That's when the summary judgement motions need to be filed, where both sides need to clearly spell out their legal arguments, so that the Judge can rule on them in November. After that, there's a mandatory settlement negotiation prior to starting the final preparations for trial.

[Borgie]

Thanks Elestan, helpful as usual.
I could have (and may have) read that information five times and not retained it.

...so that the Judge can rule on them in November. After that, there's a mandatory settlement negotiation prior to starting the final preparations for trial.

So what exactly does “Summary Judgment” do then? I though it was in used lieu of a trial. Or is a trial what happens when the judge has insufficient information to rule?

[Elestan]

So what exactly does “Summary Judgment” do then? I though it was in used lieu of a trial. Or is a trial what happens when the judge has insufficient information to rule?

In a court case, there are usually two types of questions to be answered:

• Questions of fact, i.e. "What actually happened?", and

• Questions of law, i.e. "What does the law say about what happened"?

The jury decides questions of fact, but the Judge decides questions of law. At Summary Judgement, the Judge will resolve any claims that can be decided on questions of law alone. An example of this might be the interpretation of the 1988 contract under which the Star Control games were originally made. The Judge will also decide any questions of fact for which the evidence is so absent or so overwhelming that they determine that no reasonable jury could find any other way.

Resolving the questions of law usually simplifies the case considerably, giving the parties a more firm basis on which to conduct settlement negotiations before taking any still-unresolved questions of fact to the jury trial.

[Borgie]

Thanks Elestan. That clears things up a lot for me.
I think I've got a much better understanding of this process now. However, this also helps to reaffirm that I do not wish to be a lawyer.

It seems to me that Summary Judgment should have very interesting results in this case. There appear to be a lot of claims as to what the law is, and how it applies.

[Matthias]

This is a (hopefully welcome) surprise.

https://www.reddit.com/r/starcontrol/co ... =control_1

https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov ... .129.0.pdf

Any realistic speculation on what the terms of the settlement might be?

[Elestan]

Any realistic speculation on what the terms of the settlement might be?

Anything anyone (including me) says at this point is going to be pure speculation.

If I were to guess, I would say that the highest probability outcome is a "let's walk away" agreement, wherein both sides keep the rights they were generally understood to have before it all started:

• Stardock keeps the trademark to "Star Control", but gives up the rest of its trademark claims.
• Stardock keeps the copyrights to the unique parts of SC3.
• Stardock agrees not to use the alien names from SCII, and takes the ZFP out of SC:O.
• P&F keep the SCII copyrights and get to make GotP.
• Everyone drops their charges and pays their own legal fees.

I'd call that the "Neutral" result. More or less would be a win for somebody in my book.

Of course, the lawyers are the big winners from the whole fiasco.

[Draxas]

Of course, the lawyers are the big winners from the whole fiasco.

As they always are. Sometimes the legal system seems to have been designed primarily to keep lawyers gainfully employed.