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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Re: Help Exposing Higbee?
« on: June 25, 2018, 11:49:20 PM »
Our company received a letter last month from Higbee, who claims to have been "hired" by PicRights.
I researched the cases they have filed outside of CA, and I've noticed a pattern. The initial complaint they file is largely boilerplate. They try to serve the defendant. In some cases, they fail, and the cases are dismissed. In some cases, they succeed. In the cases in which they successfully serve the defendant and the defendant hires a lawyer, the parties settled in, I think, every case I saw. In the cases in which they successfully serve the defendant but the defendant never replies to the complaint, the plaintiff moves for voluntary dismissal, usually days after the deadline expires for the defendant's reply.
Why? Of course I can't be sure, and I am not a lawyer. I wondered why the plaintiff does not move for summary judgement.
That option notwithstanding, I'm going to posit that the Higbees, Mathew and Melissa (aka Melissa Clark), decide the continued expense of pursuing a case against these small-time outfits isn't worth it. Out-of-state appearances court appearances require travel and are very costly for them.
What do others think?
We are still deciding what to do. The grief from continuing to interact with Higbee's people and dealing with this is not trivial, and it might be worth a few hundred dollars to make it go away. It also might be damaging to our reputation to have a lawsuit filed against us. On the other hand, it looks like most defendants win by just not hiring a lawyer and not responding.
I researched the cases they have filed outside of CA, and I've noticed a pattern. The initial complaint they file is largely boilerplate. They try to serve the defendant. In some cases, they fail, and the cases are dismissed. In some cases, they succeed. In the cases in which they successfully serve the defendant and the defendant hires a lawyer, the parties settled in, I think, every case I saw. In the cases in which they successfully serve the defendant but the defendant never replies to the complaint, the plaintiff moves for voluntary dismissal, usually days after the deadline expires for the defendant's reply.
Why? Of course I can't be sure, and I am not a lawyer. I wondered why the plaintiff does not move for summary judgement.
That option notwithstanding, I'm going to posit that the Higbees, Mathew and Melissa (aka Melissa Clark), decide the continued expense of pursuing a case against these small-time outfits isn't worth it. Out-of-state appearances court appearances require travel and are very costly for them.
What do others think?
We are still deciding what to do. The grief from continuing to interact with Higbee's people and dealing with this is not trivial, and it might be worth a few hundred dollars to make it go away. It also might be damaging to our reputation to have a lawsuit filed against us. On the other hand, it looks like most defendants win by just not hiring a lawyer and not responding.