United States law question

lordnoah

Hello,

I'll explain the background to the situation:

A friend of mine took a 'patent' case to a US court and lost.

Then he took the case to (the higher) Superior Court and won unanimously. However he was told in order to claim damages he would have to go back to the lower court he originally lost at and try to win there again.

Then his lawyer told him he was pulling out of the case and would not go back to the lower court. His reason was that they could not calculate damages in this patent case and therefore there was no point going back to court. The lawyer said that it is a law in America that you must be able to accurately calculate damages in order to try to claim any.

However is my friends case he is trying to sue a company who used an invention of his and not paid him any royalties. So my question is, how can he be expencted to have access to the financial records of a company he no longer works in? It is just not possible for him to accurately calculate damages.

Is it really true that a claim for damages must fully backed up by evidence? Its also strange that his lawyer pulled out of the case after working on it for 3 years and after the case won at the Superior Court.

Any help would be fantastic!

Victor

In which state? The law will vary.

Surely the finacial or other records can be subpeonaed?

Reloc8

Mate, I think you need a US lawyer (or your friend does) or at least www.hellyeahboards.com. This is pretty specialised stuff for a gang of people to take potshots at and I don't know that the lawyer involved will take much heed of information/speculation/opinion you might garner from here.

lordnoah

Thanks for the replies!
The state this relates to is California.
I'll go and try http://www.hellyeahboards.com/ now so.

Reloc8

Sorry I was being a bit of a smartarse but I think you have a better chance of useful info from a US site.