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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday May 05 2020, @11:44AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-on-like-Donkey-Kong dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

In April of 2018, the Twin Galaxies video game scoreboard announced its finding that well-known classic game score-chaser Billy Mitchell did not achieve his Donkey Kong high scores on unmodified arcade hardware, stripping him of all his accumulated records in the process. Since then, Mitchell has oft claimed that he would fight the decision every way he could. And in September 2019, Mitchell and his lawyers said in a statement they would be forced to "resort to legal recourse" if Twin Galaxies didn't rescind its decision and reinstate Mitchell's scores.

But court filings obtained by Ars Technica show that Mitchell had already filed suit against Twin Galaxies in a Los Angeles County court as early as April 2019.

Mitchell's defamation lawsuit—misfiled as "William James Mitchell vs. Twin Galexies, LLC [sic]" and not reported in previous press accounts—has been slowly building to a planned July anti-SLAPP hearing, where Twin Galaxies will make use of a statute that lets defendants quickly strike down lawsuits that threaten "public participation." Twin Galaxies says in court filings that its statements regarding Mitchell's scores were not defamatory and that finding in Mitchell's favor "would have chilling effects on the freedom of speech."

"My law firm and I are fully confident that we will establish a prima face [sic] case for all parts of the lawsuit," Mitchell told Ars Technica in a Twitter Direct Message.


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  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by ikanreed on Tuesday May 05 2020, @03:35PM (1 child)

    by ikanreed (3164) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday May 05 2020, @03:35PM (#990741) Journal

    Unfortunately, the normal "punishment" for time wasting pointless lawsuits is just having your case thrown out, and given that there is a disagreement about the material facts of the case a judge would be hard pressed to find cause for such a summary ruling.

    To get a contempt of court charge, you have to disrupt the proceedings themselves. If he falsified evidence of non-cheating and brought that to court, he could go to jail for that though.

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  • (Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday May 05 2020, @04:04PM

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday May 05 2020, @04:04PM (#990756)

    It is also possible in some cases for the plaintiffs to end up on the hook for the defendant's legal fees.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.