Yes, Virginia, any idiot CAN file a lawsuit!
Congratulations, Stacie Somers of San Diego County! You're the first jackass of 2008! — Well, OK, technically, since the suit was filed on December 31, you're the last jackass of 2007. But as it's already prompted some very silly analysis …
Context & Ripple Effects
The Macalope's mockery of Stacie Somers' December 31, 2007 lawsuit lands in a stretch where tech writers were already cataloguing dubious filings — TechCrunch ran a piece on stupidity and litigiousness back in October 2007 (Being Stupid And Litigious Is No Way To Go Through Life), so this suit slots into an established running gag rather than starting one.
What makes the filing travel beyond one blog's snark is its substance: per the syndicated pickup by NewsFactor, the suit demands that Apple license Microsoft's DRM. That it broke on the same day Techdirt reported Digg and others being sued over the infamous computer solitaire patent ([[a:1182492]]) gave commentators two fresh examples of aggressive litigation against tech companies in a single news cycle.
First-order effects
- Apple now faces a plaintiff demanding it license Microsoft's DRM technology, with the suit already generating derisive coverage from The Macalope and straight reporting from NewsFactor on the same day.
- Somers' filing becomes instant fodder for tech commentary, with the timing — filed December 31, covered January 4 — making her the year-end punchline for the 'first jackass of 2008' framing.
Second-order effects
- The clustering of suits like this one alongside the solitaire-patent claims against Digg gives tech blogs a ready-made narrative of litigious overreach, raising the reputational cost for future filers whose complaints look thin on their face.
Third-order effects
- If nuisance-style suits against consumer tech companies keep arriving at this cadence, the industry's response will likely harden into routine public ridicule plus legal defense costs priced in as a cost of doing business — a dynamic where the courtroom battle matters less than the blog-cycle one.
The trend: Individual and small-claimant lawsuits against major tech companies are increasingly being fought in the tech press before they are ever fought in court.