Some insights on legal actions

Kid Dynomite

Dennis (Michael) Wilson
Silver Member
I just thought about a few things related to the topic of legal action.

#1. Damages must be documented and established. The players that won the most were all special invitiees and had no monetary damages/outlay of funds excluding their own expenses for travel, lodging, food, and required IPT attire.

#2. There must be some type of consideration in kind for the goods or services and their lack of financial outlay because of being invited and not forced to pay to qualify. It could be said that, they were gettin something for nothing. This may cause problems legally.

#3. The top 150 players with a few exceptions were all invited and not forced to qualify or put up any monetary consideration in exchange for the chance at 100,000.00's of dollars. As such, they can not expect something for nothing and that is how a judge and court would precieve it.

#4. They have had some good come out of the fiasco and may now get some type of future endorsements or technical work as an advisor or teaching pool as a result. That would have to be monetized to estimate any damages and legal restitution necessary.

#5. The promise of payments and pay outs are estimates and not in contractual form. As such, the IPT organization can be PRECEIVED as having false advertising only or at best. Must word this carefully!!!!!

#6. The IPT is most likely a limited liability corporation and any members are isolated individually from prosecution. So, you can not go after KT or anyone else just the corporation. A corporation according to the ex-ipt executive is 6 to 7 million in the red. So, what lint from the IPT corporate pockets could be obtained?

All in all, call it a day and move on. I do not like it!!! and hate to be a pessimist. But, I am trying to keep it REAL here. The people with the strongest case were those that monetarily qualified for Reno and got stiffed. The others were all special invitations (150 of them). Also, the players qualifying now or resently if they do not receive consideration that the court would deem reasonable for their 2000 credit card charges, they have a major case and grounds for a refund. But they number close to 60 for the tour card tournament at 2,000 a peice and that totals 120,000.00 plus 50 times 1500 is 75,000.00 if the court ordered the refund of the 50 qualifier entries in the tours Reno event at best.

They would be entitiled to copiers, printers, office equipement and etc that remained along with any other creditors. With no REAL assets to speak of in the corporation this is a HOPELESS endeavor.

I am certain Harry Platis knows this and is fully aware. He can speak on the above topics and so can most any legal professional. They talk about what can be done and no one is talking about the reality of the situation. throwing another 30 G into this is just NUTS for the players.

Sincerely,
Kid
Dynomite
 
Yeah, #6 is the kicker.

Besides, it might drag on for many years.

I was involved in a class action that lasted about 10 years and in the end we lost plus had to pay the City of Chicago's attorney's fees.

Jake
 
KID DYNOMITE...With respect, I have to disagree with a number of your assertions.

<<#1. Damages must be documented and established. The players that won the most were all special invitiees and had no monetary damages/outlay of funds excluding their own expenses for travel, lodging, food, and required IPT attire.

No, "damages" include a failure to honor the economic terms of a contract and there clearly was a contract between the IPT and the players whether in written or oral form...either way, there is a contract. The player's promised to show up and play and they did. The IPT promised to pay EVERYONE who showed up and played...and it did not. There is clearly a breach of contract claim if the players don't get paid and their damages are the prize money they earned based upon their rankings in the event...which amounts were POSTED PUBLICALY and upon which the players had a right to rely.

<<#2. There must be some type of consideration in kind for the goods or services and their lack of financial outlay because of being invited and not forced to pay to qualify. It could be said that, they were gettin something for nothing. This may cause problems legally. >>
No. "Consideration" can take MANY non-economic forms and "promises" are universally considered a form of consideration. The players promised to show up and to play in a "workmanlike fashion" meaning they shot with both hands. The IPT promised to pay and they have not so far. That is clearly an actionable circumstance.


<<#3. The top 150 players with a few exceptions were all invited and not forced to qualify or put up any monetary consideration in exchange for the chance at 100,000.00's of dollars. As such, they can not expect something for nothing and that is how a judge and court would precieve it. >>

WAY off on that one. As noted above the players showed up and played as promised. Whether doing so cost them any money and/or whether they were invited or not has nothing to do with whether there was a contract that promised to exchange money for services...in the form of the player's actually competing.

<<#5. The promise of payments and pay outs are estimates and not in contractual form. As such, the IPT organization can be PRECEIVED as having false advertising only or at best. Must word this carefully!!!!!>>

No, the promised payments were not estimates whatsoever. They were SPECIFIC SUMS for SPECIFIC levels of final rankings. Again, under U.S. law, oral contracts are just as enforceable as written contracts...they are just somewhat harder to prove than written contracts. But there is MASSIVE evidence that the IPT promised specific sums of money to the players as an inducement to have them show up. There simply is no question about that.

<<#6. The IPT is most likely a limited liability corporation and any members are isolated individually from prosecution. So, you can not go after KT or anyone else just the corporation. A corporation according to the ex-ipt executive is 6 to 7 million in the red. So, what lint from the IPT corporate pockets could be obtained?>>

No, LLC members and/or corporate executives are NOT "individually isolated from prosecution" (and I assume you mean prosecuted under civil and not criminal law.)

What you are referring to is what is known as the "corporate veil" which TENDS to protect corporate executives from personal legal attack (civil or criminal) but as Enron and numerous other widely publicized events clearly show, the corporate veil can and often is pierced.

There are a number of ways that executives can be acted against personally but the two most frequent are"
A) Fraud...with respect to which there is NO protection whatsoever and
B) A showing that the executive was acting solely in his/her capacity on normal and ordinary company business. The fruad issue is obvious and requires no further comment. The second protection would arise...say, if a Vice President of sales contracted with a buyer for certain products but his company failed to deliver. If he/she can show that there was no prior knowledge that the products would never be delivered (i.e. there was no intentional fraud) then just because the COMPANY failed to deliver would not permit the executive to be held personally liable since he/she was just doing his/her job in entering into the contract of sale.

<<They would be entitiled to copiers, printers, office equipement and etc that remained along with any other creditors. With no REAL assets to speak of in the corporation this is a HOPELESS endeavor. >>

I agree with your conclusion on this point entirely. Absent a showing of fraud...which is NOT dischargable in bankruptcy...the IPT could just file for bankruptcy and that would be that.

<<throwing another 30 G into this is just NUTS for the players.>>

Again, I agree unless counsel suggests that there is a SUBSTANTIAL liklihood that KT can be held personally responsible as noted above and even then, counsel would have to have substantial reason to believe that KT is, in fact, wealthy. Sometimes all is NOT what is seems.

Bottom line, if counsel was not willing to take such a case as this on a contingency, I wouldn't touch it with...oh well...a pool cue.

I respect your opinions and offer mine to the contrary for what they are...opinions...but I happen to be correct!! (-:
Regards,
Jim
 
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