Posts made by Ganymede

@GreenFlashlight said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

Possibly unrelated, but I've been hearing people refer to the (local) housing market as a seller's market due to the pandemic, and I don't understand how the seller has all the power when so few people have the means to buy.

Part of the issue is the availability of money. A lot of people stopped looking for loans due to the COVID-19 scare. Lenders make money through loans, so they lowered interest rates to attract borrowers.

The other part is the paucity of housing. Although construction shouldn't have stopped, the financial uncertainty has ground development to a halt. With less new construction happening, the existing housing market is drying up.

Put them together, and you have a seller's market.

In this helpful video, start at around minute 8 and keep listening.

This is why I support nailing down certain discussions on this board regarding diversity.

I'd take a look at your lease.

Most leases, but for non-payment of rent, usually provide tenants with a period in which to cure defaults upon written notice. See if yours has one. If so, the landlord must give you a period of time to fix the "problem" before seeking to evict.

This should include your brother moving in because that's an easy-to-remedy problem.

Honestly, your landlord sounds like a special type of stupid to want to evict a paying tenant when the real unemployment rate remains above 20%.

@HelloProject said in Gauging Interest:

All I want in this world is TITS.

@Botulism

Oh, no worries about that.

But making me work?

Couldn't move the original post. It's stuck here.

Which one did you want me to merge it into?

@Rinel said in The Work Thread:

The district court just ordered the DA to produce the entire trial record of the case.

I am positively gleeful.

We may not win but now some poor bastard has to do what I did last year.

I am proud.

Fuck them up.

Fuck them up hard.

@Kestrel said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. Legit stahp. Why do people not understand the concept of criticising systems while being forced to operate within them or starve.

"If you believe in defunding the police, why do you follow the law?"

Yeah, I hear you.

@Groth said in The Art of Lawyering:

Can a borderline case even make it to a jury?

Yes.

Suppose there is a clear precedent that requires three operative facts. Suppose there is sufficient evidence to establish all three, but there is evidence to the contrary. This is what a jury shall decide: what the facts are.

And if they fit the mold, the case is made.

@Jeshin said in The Art of Lawyering:

It states that a judge can waive qualified immunity to let a case proceed to trial, but that the defense can still invoke it as something the prosecution has to overcome?

In a civil case, the court does not "waive" qualified immunity. That's not an accurate statement. If the defense raises qualified immunity in a motion to dismiss, a court may decide that there are sufficient facts to warrant overruling the motion. A defense can raise it again after discovery in a summary judgment motion, arguing that there are no issues of material fact related to the defense. and that the defense is entitled to judgment as a matter of law. And at trial, at the close of a plaintiff's case, the defense can again raise the defense and argue that the plaintiff failed to present evidence sufficient to overcome it. The point is a defense never goes away, and is always available.

Is this why so many cases that reach jury trial regarding police (or government law enforcement) end up with a not-guilty verdict? Because qualified immunity is brought up during the trial and the jury ends up going well legally speaking we guess this is 'reasonable'?

Second, in a civil context, defendants are liable, not "guilty." Most of these cases were decided without going to trial, as far as I can tell. To answer your question, though, in cases where there is a trial, my inkling is that such cases involved facts which were borderline, so juries leaned towards favoring law enforcement. In my experience, excessive force cases rarely make it to juries, and are usually decided by motion or through settlement.

Here's a quick run-down.

"Qualified immunity" for excessive force complaints requires a plaintiff to prove two things: (1) that their constitutional rights were violated; and (2) that the defendant officer clearly violated established law. Element 2 is the difficult thing to prove because criminal law is evolving so fast that it even the best practitioners couldn't say with reasonable certainty that any act "clearly violates" established law.

"Qualified immunity" for other sort of torts requires a plaintiff to demonstrate that the defendant acted: (1) with hatred or ill-will; or (2) reckless disregard for the plaintiff's rights which had a great probability of causing substantial harm. This is the "malice" standard used for many torts.

So, what's the difference? Well, the first variety of qualified immunity doesn't inquire into an officer's intent, but it does require a plaintiff to make an argument based on existing law. In practice, a plaintiff's attorney has to allege facts to establish a "clear violation of established law," which is a lot more difficult that you'd expect. This is especially true if you are alleging a new set of facts that has never been seen by a court. After all, how can you violated "established law" if you have a scenario that is a matter of first impression? The second variety seems to be a lot harder because you have to establish the officer's mindset at the time of the illegal act. In practice, it is actually easier because a court can infer from allegations what a mindset might be.

Suppose we look at the Floyd situation, and we discover that there has been no cases before Washington courts where an officer knelt on the neck of an accused before. How can there be a clear violation of establish law? You'd have to find an analogous situation in Washington that somehow made it to a judgment. Given that many police departments settle this cases prior to judgment, it's unlikely that you'll find any such case. See the problem?

But take that same situation, state the known facts, and then argue that the officer acted "with reckless disregard for Floyd's life" by kneeling on his neck, "which has a great probability of doing substantial harm." There's almost no way to argue that this would not be the case, presuming the allegations to be true. The plaintiff would survive the motion to dismiss, which practically cuts out the immunity defense.

@Jeshin said in The Art of Lawyering:

The debate was related to qualified immunity seems weird! and I'm like it is weird! but then I tried to liken the Bob example to sometimes you go after the dept/city and not the individual so etc etc. Laymen people mangling law.

"Qualified immunity" is a whole other beast. Your analogy doesn't fit into it very neatly for innumerable reasons, not the least of which being that qualified immunity for the deprivation of civil rights by law enforcement follows a different set of elements than qualified immunity for just about every other tort out there. And that's part of the problem with qualified immunity for excessive force complaints.

I can probably spend the entire night explaining why proposals from requiring police officers to get malpractice insurance to statutorily removing qualified immunity won't do shit, but if the short discussion on capitalism else-thread is any indication no one wants to listen to folks with some expertise on the subject. (My law firm handles excessive force complaints.)

@Jeshin said in The Art of Lawyering:

Can Bob be sued for damages? or is this a case of doing my job, I didn't know and knock it up to the company level?

Yes. There is no Nuremberg defense here.

Is Soda company sued for damages just because they have bigger pockets?

Yes. The Company may be held liable under the doctrine of respondeat superior, also known as vicarious liability.

@Jaded said in General Video Game Thread:

Yeah keep a box handy. You're going to do that a lot. Lots of feels from the get go.

Oh, I know. I know.

@ZombieGenesis said in RL things I love:

My wife just texted me that she found the War for Cybertron Ultra Magnus box for $30 at our local Walmart. I'm actually giddy.

Yup. That's why I got one and am shipping one to a friend.

Despite the label of $49.97, apparently someone at Wal-Mart done fucked up.

@HelloProject said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Of course it could all be all in my head ...

I'm going to go out on a limb and say yes.

There's two reasons. First, I believe that games seem a lot more inclusive and understanding than even ten years ago. I think that the hobby is mostly populated by marginalized players who at least try to sympathize with marginalized characters. Even the population of this forum seems to have swung away from the machismo of shitposting in recent years, whether by design or not.

Second, even if otherwise, fuck what other people think. You are black, and this is who you are, so you go ahead and you portray what you believe a black character ought to be like. You probably know better than non-black players what this means, even if it might seem to them to be an offensive trope. You have every right to be irritated when you see the same simultaneously. There's nothing wrong with this.

Please don't let the narrow-mindedness of others affect you.

@L-B-Heuschkel said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

Don't make sexuality the only thing your character advertises in order to invite others to interact with the character.

Well, exactly.

Maybe this is why I don't think anyone's ever complained about my PCs' sexuality.

@ZombieGenesis said in Diversity Representation in MU*ing:

People cry about being inclusive but, in the end, I think most people in this hobby are happier just to sit back, mock, and feel generally superior to those around them.

This is how I feel every time I hear someone say that "the vast majority of lesbian PCs are being played by male sexpests." If people want to judge me, fine, but the fact that I enjoy playing female, not-heterosexual PCs is no one's business but my own.

If I am playing a caricature, call me out, but do not presume to tell me what my motivations are.

@SinCerely

This is the case now, yes. Guess it depends what you’re looking for right now, and where you are looking.