Rudy Giuliani sued, why ask for $1.3b? Rudy Giuliani has been sued. The plaintiffs are asking for S1.3 billion in compensation. He doesn't have anything like that much money. His net worth is estimated to be $45 million. Why are they asking for such a large amount, which they could not possibly ever receive? What is the legal thinking behind it? What is the strategy? $45 million is the maximum they could ever recover, so why not ask for that?
You claim for the damage you suffered If you owe me $130 for unpaid wages, I sue for $130. If you wrote off my $130,000 car I sue for $130,000. If you burnt down my $130 million building, I sue for $130 million. If you did (in my estimate) $1.3 billion damage to my reputation I sue for $1.3 billion. Of course, I will have to prove that the damage was suffered - some damages are easier to prove than others. Whether the defendant can pay it is irrelevant to the suit. Of course, if there is a judgement that is more than the defendant’s net worth then any excess is “wasted”. At least commercially. However, commercial return is only one factor involved in deciding to launch a suit. Others include: seeking a precedent making a statement of principle vengeance
If you want to protect yourself or any property interests you may have in this circumstance you have to talk to a lawyer. You cannot get (or trust) legal advice from the internet. I will, however, make the following personal observations: I only provide a W-9 to people who are paying me money, and who request it as a condition of paying me. I don't know of a legal requirement to supply it after the fact. However, not providing it to someone who did pay you more than $600 in a tax year could certainly make it difficult for them to comply with their tax filing obligations. I do not sign any agreements, assignments, or contracts, without what I consider to be fair consideration. E.g., if on leaving a job (as has happened) I am asked by a former employer to sign something that I am not already obligated to sign due to some prior contract, then I negotiate what is commonly called a "severance package." They pay me and/or extend benefits, and I sign something that limits their liability.
Two reasons that spring to mind: The Respondent wanted the appeal to proceed so that they would have definitive case law from a higher court. That is they thought they would win and, quite possibly, the appellant thought they would win too. Rolling the dice on a losing proposition is not so bad if you have no skin in the game so the Respondent is encouraging the appeal. Its a commercial PR decision - it looks bad in the press if you use your money and power to prevent someone from pursuing their legal rights. This way, they can put their hand on their hearts and say "we gave them every opportunity to prove us wrong".
It means exactly what it says: one of the parties (call them A) to the case purchased a life insurance policy that would pay £300,000 (presumably to A) if the judge were to die. Why they did this, we can only guess. But if the case was extremely long, there may have been a greater chance that the judge would die before it ended, and this would presumably delay the proceedings even further, causing more trouble and expense to the parties. It may be that A wanted to be protected financially if this happened. Another possibility is that A felt that Scarman was favoring A's side of the case; if Scarman were to die and be replaced by another judge, it might reduce A's chances of winning, and so A wanted insurance against that.
Is it worth it to contact a lawyer? No. The amount at issue indicates that the matter would have to be litigated in Small Claims court, where typically parties are not allowed to be represented by a lawyer. Furthermore, litigating in Small Claims court will give you some exposure to judicial proceedings. Being able to advance your legal arguments in court is useful, and this seems to be a great occasion to gain experience of that sort. The rental company's uncooperative behavior is unreasonable and can forfeit its entitlement to at least a sizeable portion of its actual expense. In many jurisdictions, the legislation provides treble damages in claims of fraud. Although claims of fraud and breach of contract oftentimes overlap, your entitlement to treble damages is not something to rule out. At the outset, the company's initial promise to give you the final statement most likely supports a finding of reasonable reliance, one of the prima facie elements of fraud. It is unclear whether the rental company made the aforementioned promise in writing. For evidentiary purposes, make sure that all your subsequent interactions with the rental company are in writing. That will make it harder for the company to disavow its verbal representations.
What should I do? Don't get intimidated, don't sign/accept/submit to his "agreement" now that you are securing employment elsewhere, and make sure that henceforth all your communications with the CEO &amp; his startup be --or continue to be-- in writing. The CEO's attempt to be reimbursed is pure non-sense because hitherto there is no mutually agreed clause between you two to that effect. Generally speaking, compensation is for the professional's work, not for his employment spanning "n" pay periods. Having there been no employment/founders agreement of any type, he will be unable to prove that this was agreed any differently in your case. Furthermore, the CEO's threat to seek reimbursement of your earned compensation unless you submit to his "mutual" agreement not only amounts to extortion, but it also reflects his cluelessness about contract law. For instance, that contracts which are signed under hardship or duress are voidable. By contrast, submitting to his conditions will needlessly impose on you the burden of proving duress once you decide the situation is unsustainable. This is in addition to the legal weight with which your acceptance and subsequent conduct would support the CEO's allegation(s) that you two have "at all times" been in a cognizable contractual relation. Being realistic, it is highly doubtful that a startup which pays you weeks late is able --or even willing-- to spend money on a lawyer for nonsense like this.
The expected value formula involves multiplying the estimated dollar amount of each possible outcome by the estimated probability of that outcome adding up the result for every possibility. The results for each outcome have to include the ability to pay if you win and the cost of collecting if you win and the time value of money if not settling delays getting you paid. This formula is routinely used in litigation to evaluate settlements, but it is only a starting point, it isn't the only factor that should be considered. You need to consider the margin of error in the estimates. A big margin of error in the best or worst case scenario, or in a small probability, can make a huge difference. You also need to recognize that it is well known that the best lawyers who ultimately get the best results, routinely overestimate the strength of their own cases, and that clients usually overestimate the strength of their own cases as well. This is a well known cognitive bias and you need to correct for it. You need to include reaching a settlement later on, but before trial, in your list of possibilities. Often, even if it make sense to settle, making an offer at just the right moment instead of a less opportune time can make a big difference. Similarly, you have to consider the case from the other side's point of view to get a realistic sense of what the other side might be willing to pay. If it seems very likely that they would be willing to pay more, you might not want to accept an offer even if the amount offered would be good enough to be an acceptable result for you. You need to consider the future litigation costs that are avoided by settling, both in terms of dollars paid to lawyers and litigation costs, and in terms of lost time, expense and opportunity costs to you or your firm. You need to consider the economic harm that you may suffer from not having the matter resolved now rather than later. For example, suppose that your firm is about to have a public offering of stock, and if the litigation is not settled, the litigation will have to be disclosed and will have a disproportionate negative effect on the price investors will be willing to pay in the public offering. It may pay to settle a case for "more than its worth" to avoid the economic harm caused by having the litigation still outstanding. You need to consider the economic harm potentially caused by information disclosed in the context of a public trial which would reveal information that there is economic value in keeping secret, or that might encourage others to bring additional lawsuits. You need to consider the long term strategic impact of each possible outcome when considering each possibility and in considering settlement, and not just the impact in the immediate transaction. Once something has been proven in court, that loss in one case can frequently be held to have been judicially established in future cases in many circumstances. For example, if a contract term is determined to have a particular meaning in a lawsuit, and the court interprets it in an unfavorable way, that could influence the economic value of another 200,000 outstanding contracts with the same language where the meaning of this term has not been resolved in litigation, and it could open the door to a class action lawsuit against you on behalf of a class consisting of all 200,000 counter-parties with you on this contract. If it the contract interpretation makes only a $5 difference in each case, the incentive to prevent that from being resolved against you in court could be huge. On the other hand, if a corporation that engaged in many transactions gets a reputation for easily settling weak cases for generous amounts, they will be bombarded with frivolous lawsuits. Expected value really only makes sense with these adjustment and also only for repeat players in cases where the outcome of any particular case will not materially affect the person considering a settlement and there are no long term strategic effects, such as large employers and large companies in consumer cases that try to force other parties to resolve disputes with them on a case by case basis in confidential arbitration hearings that don't create precedents. It is less useful for one time participants in the legal system in a case with life changing consequences, as the benefits and costs of an outcome may be non-economic or may be non-linear (although this can be solved by more accurately valuing the dollar amounts in an expected value formula to consider the total impact of a particular result rather than the naive immediate payment). This non-linear factor is critical in these cases, however, because the personal utility value of an outcome is not strictly a matter of average dollar return. To give a simple and fairly common example, suppose that you have a case where you have a 70% chance of winning and a 30% chance of losing. If you lose you get nothing and pay nothing. If you win, you get $10,000,000. The expected value is $7,000,000. But, if you have someone who has never had real money in their life and will never have an opportunity to get real money in their life ever again, settling for a 100% chance of getting $3,000,000 could very well be better than getting a 70% chance of getting $10,000,000, because to that person the difference between getting $3,000,000 and $10,000,000 may not be very important, but the difference between getting at least $3,000,000 and getting $0 would be huge. One of the reasons that plaintiffs like to use class action lawsuits is that handling one big all or nothing cases causes businesses to stop thinking like expected value repeat player robots, and to start thinking like individuals who participate in litigation one time with high stakes, causing them to accept less optimal settlements for them relative to expected value to avoid the risk of a big disaster. Paying settlements or losing a modest percentage of small cases now and then won't harm anyone's career. Losing a big life or death of the company case after going to trial when a settlement that was a better deal was an option will cost the entire management team their careers and get many of the lawyers at the firm handling the defense of the case fired as well.
Can I legally put pressure on the company to get a compensation? (e.g. write an article explaining what they did) Writing an article about being fired doesn't have anything to do with the fact that writing that article is legal or not. Sure, you can write an article - or likely an opinion piece - about being fired for what you say are unjust reasons and hope it results in pressure on your old company. This happens all the time in the press; that's what Op-ed and opinion pieces - and also "objective" journalism - do every day. A big corporation isn't going to care about some bad PR from a disgruntled freelancer. Bad PR is not legal pressure. So consider the answer to your last question Can I be sued for warning of a potential crowdfunding scam? which is an outline of defamation law. If you're not very careful (and the publication's editor, if there is one and if they are not well-versed in defamation law), you will defame someone at the company (publish provably false facts) in your article and they (and/or the compnay) can take action against you. And self-publishing a piece has even greater risks of defamation, because it's likely you don't know the boundaries of defamation. Defamation is complex (especially in an international context) and turns on many details of the facts, how they were published, and more. But: how much money do you have to defend yourself against a libel suit? Another point to consider is this: even if you don't clearly libel someone at the company, the company can still take action against you. They can retaliate against bad PR with a lawsuit. You say they have lawyers and can afford it, and you're alone. Can you afford to defend yourself? Is it worth suing them (they're US-based), considering the cost or the legal action would not come cheap (I guess)? As a side note I am based in Europe (I avoid putting the country here, as a means to protect my privacy) That's entirely up to you. No one here will advise you about that. Only you can make that decision, or your lawyer can advise you on that. Talk to an attorney who might take on such an action, and one involving international jurisdictions (a US state and the unnamed European - possibly EU - country). Aside from potential libel, the other important aspect is to determine what legally can be done internationally in terms of defamation, both with any potential action you take and what actions the company can take against you. That will be determined by different laws and international agreements between the US (and possibly the state) and the unnamed (possibly EU) European country. The minor aspect of your dispute is your termination and the employment contract: The company engaging with the contractor has the right to terminate the agreement after several warnings have been issues.... However, no FORMAL warning has ever been issued. That's legally vague enough to allow the company to fire you at any time. (Update from comments: Virginia is a "Right to Work" state which means that the employer may fire the employee for any reason without cause unless the employee is being fired for being a member of a protected class, i.e.race, religion, sex, etc.) Again, international jurisdictions come into play concerning labor laws. Can you find a lawyer who will take on an international labor dispute?