Replying to a message of Joe Delahaye to Ward Dossche:

 JD> 
 >> Correct again but it seems you were not privy to his mails in ZCC at
 >> that ti which basically mean "This idiot is crazy enough to sue me, if
 >> he succeeds i front of an American court  nothing is certain and it
 >> could even cost me a l of money. I'm outta here".  It was one of the
 >> fastest exists from Fidonet I've ever seen.  Do you remember when
 >> Helmut Hullen threatened sueing me? What happened? And outcome? And
 >> the present?

 JD> In the US if it gets to court, it WILL cost him a lot of money, win or
 JD> lose.  I dont know how it works in Europe, but I think in the US each
 JD> party gets to pay their own costs

That's true, and a lot of people lose cases because they no longer have the
funds to carry on the proceedings.  Thus some people (companies, government)
will stretch the proceedings out as long as possible in order to bankrupt the
other side, then they win by default - not because of any merits in their case.

The solution to the problem would be to adopt the
everyplace-on-the-planet-except-the-US
rule that whichever side loses the case has to pay the costs incurred by
the winning side.
But that isn't going to happen because the lawyers won't allow it, that
would put too many
of them out of work.

--- FleetStreet 1.19+