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Messages - ihtfp71

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Matthew - thank you for your sensible point of view and your willingness to take a few minutes. Hopefully your comments will also be helpful to others.

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Higbee Associates Letter & Lawsuits Forum / Claim Against My Corporation
« on: December 29, 2018, 10:46:03 PM »
I have a slightly different situation from other postings here. The infringement email came into my personal email but was addressed to the corporation that I own. The infringing posting was on the corporate web site. The domain name of my personal email is the same domain name as the corporate web site.

First, I heard from Picrights in Canada. They wanted $150, which I would have given them except that I was concerned that I would only encourage more claims. I did communicate with them via email, and I challenged them to prove that they existed as a legal entity, to which they did not respond. (I suspect they didn't know how.) So I decided to ignore the whole thing since I couldn't evaluate the risks from settling, and I had a difficult time imagining that a Canadian firm was going to sue me in the US for small change.

Second, months went by and then I heard from Higbee, who wanted $1,000. I have ignored (not even opened) emails and ignored voice mails. I considered this to be more serious but nevertheless they were going to have to travel a long distance from California to sue me.

Third, completely independently, this corporation no longer has any business nor expects any business, and I had already decided to dissolve it at the end of this year. This just gives me an extra reason to do so.

Fourth, in theory, the corporate liability protection should be sufficient, but then again any determined attorney would attempt to pierce the corporate veil and expose personal liability - and might succeed. Not every single i has been dotted or every t crossed in the lifetime of the corporation.

Finally, there is a sister corporation to the one being dissolved which has a similar name. I'm going to pull down the original web site with the dissolution of the corporation, but some of the material on it is planned to re-appear on the sister's new web site, albeit in a different form and with no unlicensed images except those of my own creation.

That's the background. I have read many of the other postings on this web site, but I've seen none that comment on settling resulting in new claims once they've discovered that you will pay. Is this not of concern or has it simply not happened (yet)?

Any comments on the corporate versus personal liability? I've considered simply faxing them the dissolution papers, but decided that any communication would not be wise. Let them figure it out. If they actually did sue me as president of the corporation I could probably craft a sufficient pro se motion to dismiss as the corporation no long exists, and I am no longer an officer of the corporation. If that didn't work, I could let them secure a judgment against the corporation which doesn't exist and no longer has a bank account. On the other hand, if they were to actually travel here to sue me, they would probably be back for a new filing against me personally which I would have to defend. I'm sure that it is unlikely but not impossible.

Or I could tell them I'm in my 70s and living on social security - which is true but not the whole story as they could quickly discover on LinkedIn.

Mostly, I'm just sharing my situation for others, though I'm happy to take any comments anyone would care to make.

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