Rossi vs. Darden developments [CASE CLOSED]

@MikeDunford

In a single post, you achieved something that no other participant here has ever achieved: a like from both maryyugo and me.

Quote from sigmoidal

We DO know: It could not possibly be 'bait and switch', because the signed agreement (you know, the one on the Docket that Rossi has his signature on), was with IH (not Cherokee).

Or are you arguing that Rossi (and his lawyer(s)) didn't read the $100.5M contract when he signed it and that's how IH 'tricked' him into signing it, because they imagined that it was actually Cherokee?

Rossi's allegation is essentially that the defendants fraudulently induced him to enter the contract by representing that IH was for all purposes Cherokee. There is apparently some evidence to support that count, since IH did not receive summary judgment on this claim. I currently have no view on the strength of that evidence or the likelihood that Rossi will win on the count at trial.

Doc. 324, Leonardo's statement of the case, now on the docket. (To get to it quickly, sort by name in reverse order.)

Quote from MikeDunford

Rossi's allegation is essentially that the defendants fraudulently induced him to enter the contract by representing that IH was for all purposes Cherokee. There is apparently some evidence to support that count, since IH did not receive summary judgment on this claim. I currently have no view on the strength of that evidence or the likelihood that Rossi will win on the count at trial.

Thanks for your comment on this, and in response to othercomments, it's great having a real lawyer weighing in.

I agree, Rossi's complaint does allege that he was fraudulently induced to sign based on IH's assurances that IH was essentially Cherokee, and since this is contested, it will be up to a Jury to reconcile the contested facts. But even in this most recent Statement of the Case (just posted on the Docket) Rossi focuses on the inability to pay, not that it was mostly about IH claiming to be Cherokee. (I admit that the original complaint made a big deal about IH saying that Cherokee owned IH and guaranteed payment, etc.)

From my look of the evidence on the docket, Rossi is basing his claims on his own testimony (from deposition) and he didn't support the strong initial claims in the suit. Which I think is is because they don't have much evidence to back that up (regarding IH being essentially Cherokee) , and so they've shifted more to another weak argument that IH didn't have the money to pay and never intended to. But given the counter-evidence submitted by IH showing that they could have easily raised the money if Rossi actually had anything that worked, I think this is also weak (and of course they paid the $11.5M for the E-Cat device and license for IP, which isn't exactly chump change).

But it won't be too long before we get an actual verdict, so I'm content to wait for that.

Quote from MikeDunford

1: If an average jury has to sit through a monthlong trial

This trial is scheduled to last two weeks.

Quote from maryyugo

Telling the truth is not "ad hominems".

Incorrect. The definition of ad hominem is "(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining." The argument against the person may be true, or it may be false, but it is still ad hominem.

An ad hominem may be valid and called for, when the person being criticized is at fault. However, when you criticize the person instead of the argument he makes, that is a logical fallacy.

Mike: FYI, for many of the rossi supporters, I am not a real lawyer.

"Thanks for your comment on this, and in response to other comments, it's great having a real lawyer weighing in."

Dewey W.

It appears ECW has been hacked and is shut down for a bit. The timing is interesting since it is the only mainstream forum with significant pro-Rossi content. Suspicious that it would happen right about the time that jurors would probably be disobeying their jury instructions to google Cold Fusion or LENR to find out more. Just saying.

Quote from JedRothwell

 

This trial is scheduled to last two weeks.

 

According to the voir dire questions submitted by plaintiffs, it's going to last 5 weeks; according to the questions submitted by the defendants, it's going to last 3-4 weeks. The only place where I've seen 2 weeks listed was in some scheduling documents that stated that the trial is scheduled to commence during a 2-week trial calendar - but that's a scheduling unit that courts use, not a time estimate for a specific case.

But let's assume 2 weeks. That might reduce the chance of baby-splitting versus a 3 to 4-week case, but not by much.

Seriously, don't underestimate the possibility of something like that happening. From my inexpert perspective, it basically looks like everyone in the case is claiming that everyone else in the case was lying to them. Add in testimony about cold fusion (the plaintiffs use that term in their proposed voir dire questionnaire, so it will probably come up somewhere). Add to that the demands that a long jury trial makes on the lives of the jurors, and the disruption that it can cause to their lives.

Picture this: you're sitting at your living room table at home, surrounded by paperwork, trying to prep for an IRS audit. And your pre-pubescent children come in with a squabble that involves - you're not totally sure, really, even after the explanations, but there's a lot of who is the bigger poopy-head and who called who a poopy-head first involved. If all the lawyers aren't careful, that's easily how the jury could wind up feeling by the end of the trial.

Quote from woodworker

 

Mike: FYI, for many of the rossi supporters, I am not a real lawyer.

"Thanks for your comment on this, and in response to other comments, it's great having a real lawyer weighing in."

 

Which mildly amuses me -

I didn't do an intro, and don't have time now. But it should be taken as a given that woodworker is more experienced as a lawyer than I ever will be. Literally - I went to law school recently, and mid-life. I'm licensed, but I'm not in active practice and have no current plans of entering practice. I'm a researcher, and (hopefully) an early-career legal academic. In other words, pretty good with the book learning, not so much with the real-world experience.

Quote from sigmoidal

 

From my look of the evidence on the docket, Rossi is basing his claims on his own testimony (from deposition) and he didn't support the strong initial claims in the suit. Which I think is is because they don't have much evidence to back that up (regarding IH being essentially Cherokee) , and so they've shifted more to another weak argument that IH didn't have the money to pay and never intended to. But given the counter-evidence submitted by IH showing that they could have easily raised the money if Rossi actually had anything that worked, I think this is also weak (and of course they paid the $11.5M for the E-Cat device and license for IP, which isn't exactly chump change).

But it won't be too long before we get an actual verdict, so I'm content to wait for that.

 

It's a jury trial, and juries don't (or at least aren't supposed to) just look at who has quantitatively more evidence. They also decide who to believe when stories conflict, and how much weight to give different pieces of evidence when they decide what really happened. And they come into the case (or at least are supposed to) as a blank slate, with no knowledge of the events or people involved.

And while I'm still getting up to speed on the case and don't have a great deal of knowledge about the people involved, I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I'd expect Rossi to be a pretty believable-sounding guy. He managed to persuade IH to invest, managed to persuade them to allow the change to the initial test, apparently managed to persuade them to allow the longer test to take place at a very different location from the original plan, and so on. And IH had a hundred million reasons to be skeptical about Rossi's claims.

I don't know. Maybe he'll be a terrible witness. Maybe the defendants will be able to impeach him. (Lord knows there's enough material to do it with.) But it may turn out that the jury believes him more than they believe the IH crowd.

Quote from Bob

If IH had IP that really worked they would :

1) Gladly pay Rossi so they could start selling BILLIONS in cold fusion reactors!

2) They would start selling cold fusion reactors or lease the IP to manufacturers to build them for them and make billions.

3) Become larger than Apple.

BOB,

IH had never had any real industrial plan in order to develop Rossi's technology.

If we look back to Cherokee history seems that we have a long trail of possibly criminal behaviors see e.g. The Playground

As I suspected in the past if that case is equal to the others there was no intention to make any business but just to steal money.

I can see that Planet Rossi has geared up to try and influence things at trial time and predict that is not going to turn out so well for those folks. The regurgitated

hack play is particularly hilarious - I think that best filter may be something like - if Planet Rossi claims it, the opposite points to the truth.

Quote from Dewey Weaver

Alan - you're perpetuating Rossi fabrications and you should stop. You should also stop drinking the RoSSC kool-aid and do your best to keep yourself and your position as moderator as far away from libelous activity as possible.

Dewey Weaver -back to threatening members on this board, I really think that actions such as these should not be tolerated during the trial.

There has been a complaint that the E-Cat World hacking accusation was planted here in the hopes that it would influence members of the jury who might ignore the instruction not go research this story on the Internet. LENR Forum have no way of verifying whether the accusation is true or not, but knowing a little about Rionrlty, I have no reason to doubt his sincerity in passing it along. If the ECW hacking suggestion feels like something planted to you, you'll need to be content to address the obvious weakness of it: namely that it's a Sifferkoll-like connecting of the dots that has little in the way of fact to support it at this point.

Bob,

I asked the Europe sales question months/years ago.

Crickets

Quote from MikeDunford

According to the voir dire questions submitted by plaintiffs, it's going to last 5 weeks; according to the questions submitted by the defendants, it's going to last 3-4 weeks.

Oh. That's too long.