Novell Wins Against SCO Again

duh P3rf3ss3r writes "The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has just affirmed the District Court ruling in SCO v Novell (PDF) in its entirety. The decision is quite a good read and lays out the reasons why the court has rejected, in toto, SCO's attempt to re-argue the case before the Court of Appeals. Is this the last gasp for SCO or will they try to appeal this to the Supreme Court? The betting lines open at 11..." Realistically this is the end of the line for the case.

Re:Not Dead Yet?

[bmo]

BS&F signed a contract saying they'd help pursue the case until the heat death of the universe.

Because Ralphie had them bamboozled at the beginning citing "Sagans" of dollars if they win.

No scam without a greedy mark.

--
BMO

Re:"Realistically"?

[v1]

The SCOTUS doesn't have to hear your case, they only take on cases with merit. Even if they do request this case to be heard, it has zero chance of actually happening. So they're done now. At least in the courtroom.

If anyone has them, I'd love to see some actual statistics of how many cases are presented and how many are heard, giving a percentage. (on the average, over the last few years, or even to see how the numbers change over the years) I bet they have a fairly low percentage of cases heard. (10%?)

Re:"Realistically"?

[rkfig]

According to supremecourt.gov: "The Court receives approximately 10,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each year. The Court grants and hears oral argument in about 75-80 cases." So, roughly, just shy of 1%

Re:Not Dead Yet?

[nyet]

Answer: BS&F are still hoping for brazillions back, even though SCOG is broke.

A better question is, where did all the money go anyway? Novell never got paid the money that SCOG owed them.

Answer: Delaware bankruptcy court (specifically Judge Gross in this case) is utterly corrupt and broken. They siphon money away from creditors and towards lawyers, making sure that ALL creditors get stiffed, until there is no money left.

Why do you think incorporating in Delaware is so popular?

Re:"Realistically"?

[rjh]

This is pretty close, but not quite accurate. SCOTUS takes cases principally according to:

1. Issues of original jurisdiction (cases involving diplomats or ambassadors, or in which a state is a party). For these cases, SCOTUS is allowed, but not required, to be the trial court. In practice, only cases involving two states get this expedited original-jurisdiction treatment: everything else gets to go through normal federal channels.
2. Statutes which expressly state they may be only heard by the Supreme Court (yes, there are a few)
3. Cases in which two different appellate courts, applying the same SCOTUS precedents to similar cases, have reached different decisions

The first category is really astonishingly rare. The second is almost as much so. The third accounts for the overwhelming majority of SCOTUS's workload.

Note that SCOTUS really doesn't care if your case "has merit." No judge really does. A judge's job isn't to decide if your case has merit: that's the jury's job. A judge's job is to make sure the laws are applied fairly and without bias to both parties.

At the SCOTUS level, SCOTUS cares whether their precedents are creating confusion among the appellate courts. If two appellate courts come to two different readings of SCOTUS's precedents, then SCOTUS will generally hear a case so that their opinion can help bring clarity to the courts.

With respect to the number of cases heard per year, approximately 1 in 200 cases appealed to SCOTUS will be heard by the Court. The buck stops at the appellate level 99.5% of the time.

(Source: David R. Hansen, former Chief Judge of the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. IANAL: I'm just reporting what he's said.)

Re:Not Dead Yet?

[shentino]

Conversion is the tort of wrongfully disposing of someone else's property.

For example. If you loan someone your car, and they sell it, they have converted your car.

It's the civil version of embezzling.

Just in case...

[symbolset]

Just in case somebody thinks this anonymous coward is a member of the slashdot tinfoil hat brigade, blaming Microsoft for everything...

Halloween Document 10 [catb.org] lays out in intimate detail how Michael Anderer, a consultant to SCO, used Microsoft to gain up to in his on words "$82-86 million." Baystar's manager of their $50 million SCO investment complained [slashdot.org]: "Mr. Emerson and I discussed a variety of investment structures wherein Microsoft would backstop, or guarantee in some way, Baystar's investment ... Microsoft assured me that it would in some way guarantee BayStar's investment in SCO."

The documents are in the public record, confirmed by all parties and well reported in the press. This is almost all of the money SCO used to fund their meritless 8-year legal campaign against Linux.

/And I'm not that AC either.