California Case Update

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Shamil said:
I think you can post bits from it, not sure what the policy is on this.

Yep, there's from Public Access to Courts Electronic Records.
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Ok.
Paul, if this in any way is not allowed, or affects the case, I would prefer this post be deleted without a second thought.

Exhibit 4 - Letter from Pamela D Deitchle, Attorney for Defendants XenForo Limited, to Patrick Fraioli, counsel for Plaintiff.​

August 4, 2011
BY EMAIL
Patrick Fraioli
Ervin Cohen & Jessup LLP
9401 Wilshire Blvd, 9th Floor
Beverly Hills, CA 91212

Re: vBulletin Solutions, Inc. v. XenForo Limited, eta/.
USD.C (CD. Cal) Case No .. CV 10-8209 R (JEMx)

Dear Pat:
I received your July 29, 2011 letter by mail Your other letters have been sent to us via emaiL Please feel free to use that service and save a few days and the postage.

*snip*

As an initial matter, Plaintiff previously waived any objection, reasonable or otherwise, by permitting Lynn Tokeshi to testify on June 27,2011 while Darby and XenForo's corporate representative listened via Skype

*snip*

Equally absurd is basing your termination of Rosenblum's deposition on the supposed need to "safeguard" confidential testimony You refused to permit Rosenblum to testify on any matter, not just alleged confidential matters .. Although you have complained about the "lack of safeguards," we offered to terminate the audio connection whenever "attorneys' eyes only" matters were discussed, but you refused (Rosenblum Depo at 17:24-17:8)
Termination of the deposition was unwarranted and is subject to monetary and evidentiary sanctions under Rule 30(d)(2) Rule 30(c)(3) states:

An objection at the time of the examination- whether to evidence, to a party's conduct, to the officer's qualifications, to the manner of taking the deposition, or to any other aspect of the deposition- must be noted on the record, but the examination still proceeds; the testimony is taken subject to any objection .. An objection must be stated concisely in a nonargumentative and nonsuggestive manner A person may instruct a deponent not to answer only when necessary to preserve a privilege, to enforce a limitation ordered by the court, or to present a motion under Rule 30(d)(3)​

You terminated the deposition, allegedly so that you could seek a protective order on an expedited basis Six weeks later, no motion has been filed, and it is obvious why: no grounds support the granting of the protective order that you represented you would seek You cannot show how an audio-only feed of nonconfidential deposition testimony annoys, embarrasses, oppresses, or unduly burdens vBulletin, especially when the parties are entitled to read the transcript anyway Indeed, the "good cause" factors weigh heavily in favor of permitting Darby and XenForo to listen to a feed of the deposition proceedings.

This instance of Plaintiff's failure to cooperate with discovery is not the first Besides repeated broken promises to make witnesses available for deposition in May and June, your office asked for an extension oftime to respond to document requests .. We granted an extension of time based on a written promise from your office that a document production would accompany Plaintiffs' responses to our document request Plaintiff, however, did not produce any documents with its July 22 responses I replied to an email from your associate, Rusty Selmont, requesting a call about vBulletin's RFP responses, but he never replied It's been over 10 days vBulletin's discovery responses are grossly deficient Out of 133 requests, vBulletin has agreed to produce documents responsive to only eight requests. Not only has vBulletin failed to produce those promised documents (RFP Nos .. 1-7 and 61), but it has refused to produce others that are, according to you, "already in the possession of Defendants" (RFP Nos .. 35-38, 53-54, 70-71, 81-91, 93-102, 114-121 & 127-128) or are "available from a more convenient source" (RFP Nos .. 35 & 37-38) Such objections are no basis for withholding responsive documents, which you probably know Is vBulletin simply playing a discovery game?

More troubling, however, is vBulletin's absolute refusal to produce documents that are clearly relevant to the claims it has asserted against Defendants For example:
  • vBulletin has refused to produce documents to support factual contentions made in its First Amended Complaint (RFP Nos .. 1 0-11 . 15-16, 55, 59-60 & 75);
  • vBulletin claims that XenForo has interfered with vBulletin's relationships with actual and prospective customers, but no customer lists, licenses, and sales information will be produced (RFP Nos. 24-26, 75, 80-82, 108-109 & 112-113m 124);
  • vBulletin has alleged that XenForo interfered with its relationship with Scott Molinari, but will not produce any documents or correspondence pertaining to Mr Moliniari, including documents pertaining to his relationship with vBulletin (RFP Nos. 35-38 & 72-73);
  • vBulletin also has alleged that Darby and Sullivan accessed vBulletin's servers and confidential information, but refuses to produce any supporting documents .. (RFP Nos. 56-58 & 111-113);
  • vBulletin contends that Darby and Sullivan "dragged their feet" and were obstructionist while employed as vBulletin developers at Jelsoft, but it refuses to produce any documents regarding the development of vBulletin software since 2007. (RFP Nos 19-20,41-42, 64-69, 78-79, 86-91, 114-123&127-128);
  • vBulletin alleges that Darby and XenForo misappropriated its trade secrets, but it will not produce supporting documents, including the alleged trade secret information that vBulletin claims was misappropriated (RFP Nos 10-11, 15-16, 55, 63, 86-91, 93-98, 100-102,114-123 & 127-128); and
  • vBulletin seeks the recovery of its lost profits, but will not produce any financial information (RFP Nos 56-60, 111-113 & 125-126)
Clearly, these documents go to the heart ofvBulletin's claims and should have been produced as part of its initial disclosures and, in any event, not later than July 22 as promised by your office .. Two more weeks have passed since then, and not a single document has been produced by your office .. Only one reasonable conclusion may be drawn from Plaintiff's discovery responses: that it has no evidence to support its claims We'll advise the court

Very truly yours,
Pamela D .. Deitchle
Grace+Grace LLP
 
Shamil said:
They are standard PDF files.

When you download them, what does the file look like?
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I just got one to open, but mostly they say the files are broken and can't be repaired.

I never have problems opening PDF files anywhere or anytime other than from those odd URL's you post.

But as I said, I have now gotten one to open after about 10 attempts, it's just frustrating that every time you post a new one up I am mostly unlikely to be able to open it for some reason.
 
Nothing new... vBulletin are idiots, simple as that. They have so far given zero evidence to back any statements, and the contrary, they have been shutdown in many areas already due to failure to produce anything that can back their statements. Their entire claims are heresay, he said, she said, type stuff, nothing documented or factual... and if they have such, then every single time a lawyer or court has asked to see a thing, nothing is produced or they pull away at the last minute, delaying proceedings.

It all goes back to the original statements made, the timing of the lawsuit notification, etc... its all corporate games in order to try and slow XF down from surpassing VB. If VB wanted to succeed, then they should have made better business decisions at those prior times, thus people like Kier would more than likely still be working for them, because they would have listened to him and others, thus they would have this type of product working for them, not against them.... but now now now bit them on the backside.

VB... you just keep doing yourself more injustices. Losing Steve Machol of all people... he was one person holding that site together for support. Now what are you going to do?

Seriously... Vwho?
 
What I really loved in this recent document, is that VB still claim there are similarities between VB and XF. Like what exactly? They don't even use the same foundation for functionality... and I've never seen the coding I've seen here in any VB coding... as VB coding is quite antiquated and old compared to the stuff in XF... that makes my eyes go blurry at times.

Offcourse unless we're back to the PHP and MySQL argument.... then how dare you use that XF! :ROFLMAO:
 
So much for it being "coincidence" that all those people left at VBSI. For those of you who may be wondering what's going on, hopefully this is the beginning of a quick end of this entire charade and debacle.

I can't say for sure but here's a guess to help you make sense of what all this nonsense is about. When you're all out of vbullets, it's time to throw as many vbulletins as you can against a wall and hope you can create an expensive war to force the other party to settle. For example, if one party has millions of dollars, one might propose to do the following: (i) cite what was an relatively innocuous group of emails or incidents out of context; (ii) throw all the now former employees under the bus to create a conspiracy, and (iii) hope you can create a huge mess that will take millions of dollars to defend and years for a judge and/or jury to sift through. This assumes the judge care to put up with all of this and also accept the other tactics of evasion of discovery that may have prior occurred. It's an all or nothing strategy which could have serious consequences if it backfires. Something may happen soon that will give the parties an indicatin of which way this case might lean.
 
The "public relations" damage this whole case is causing vbulletin must be tremendous. They brought it onto themself, and don't care if the blowback destroys their own company. They simply can not accept the fact that their product is 10 years behind-the-times and users have moved on to more advanced offerings. Like a scared animal, they'll lash out at anyone even if it means hurting themself in the long run.
 
The thing is, and I might get some flak for saying this, is that I quite like VBulletin as a framework and it's amazingly extensible. So many hundreds of people use it, so many people with whom I work everyday use it and the whole VB ecosystem supports hundreds of developers. It feels like such a terrible shame when you see the inevitability of where this is going... Maybe another two years and IB may all but destroy VB more by the stagnation they have caused and their greed then by any flaw in the product.

I have said this in the past at VB that I wish both VB and XF do well and prosper. More options for everyone and competition breeds innovation... Sadly, that looks highly unlikely with every passing day.
 
Deepmartini said:
The "public relations" damage this whole case is causing vbulletin must be tremendous. They brought it onto themself, and don't care if the blowback destroys their own company. They simply can not accept the fact that their product is 10 years behind-the-times and users have moved on to more advanced offerings. Like a scared animal, they'll lash out at anyone even if it means hurting themself in the long run.
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The internet is changing before our very eyes. Facebook is falling apart(All Hail Google Plus). Many people are turning off blogs and vBulletin is no longer the dominant software on the internet for paid forums. More and more Ive seen many sites make the switch and soon Xenforo will establish itself dominant in this era just like vbulletin once did.
 
I don't have enough time to write and identify all that is ridiculous in the latest round of filings. In fact, I am having a hard time getting off the floor and stopping laughing. A RICO claim? Wow, its like someone said to IB, here is a line that, if you cross it, no one will believe a word you say...and IB responded by passing that line by 10,000 miles.

There are so many errors (substantive and procedural) in the more recent filings, that I am not sure if anyone on the IB side has checked in with reality. Lynn Tokeshi's deposition, for example, disclaims any denial for any of the things IB originally said she asked for...."Oh, I don't remember them refusing to do anything." It's kind of like they are begging the judge to call them stupid.

Well, no need to further kick the dead horse that is IB's legal claims or credibility at this point. They have shown themselves to be petulant and moronic. They aren't even good at playing underhanded tricks (aside from charging in advance and not delivering on the promised vB 4.x series- on that point they played their last hand very well).
 
BTW, I have not looked at the PACER filings directly, but the it appears that the judge denied the motion for leave to file the second amended complaint and, therefore, it appears that the addition of Mert, et. al, as additional defendants has not been approved. Essentially, those filings were wishful thinking on the part of IB. Unless I am mistaken, the first amended complaint is the only complaint before the court.
 
[offtopic]

When I was reading these new papers all that was going through my head was this...

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Maybe the judge was thinking the same?

[/offtopic]
 
Saeed said:
:eek::eek::eek:

My jaw just dropped!

Obviously speculating...but if this was the reason Steve Machol and his wife left, with 2 others...I feel sorry for them all even more.
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Yeah, witness how the white shoe boyz reward the loyalty of the likes of Machol who hung in there with them and defended vBarf for so long after the white shoes' arrival. What a friggin mess.
 
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