On to Funimation.
The infamous error, page 8:
Ver archivo adjunto 1392887
The defamation arguments seem decently strong. For TI, as with Marchi, the arguments seem kind of limp. Vicarious liability seems... okay, I guess, where the they use Monica asking a Funi employee what she can say as evidence that they had control over her tweets. Seems iffy, but we'll what the judges think. Civil conspiracy is kind of the same, and uses the same emails.
It's terrible and it misstates the standard for TI. It is all of a paragraph long. However, they've never really argued Funimation directly committed TI, although I think they probably did, only that they're either vicariously liability or liable on a conspiracy basis for it. However, this one paragraph bit of nonsense appears to claim they committed TI because they defamed Vic and he then as a result of that lost conventions. That's damages for defamation, not tortious interference.
Those are neither necessary nor sufficient to establish TI committed directly by Funimation. I honestly think they could have done without that argument entirely because it just confuses the argument.
I think Funimation also actually directly interfered with the contracts and probably put in a bad word with conventions, but there's no direct evidence of record supporting that and really no objective basis to argue it.
The sur-replies in general aren't particularly helpful but sur-replies generally aren't. The one that needed to be good, against Ron and Monica, actually was. Only those two worms actually raised anything in their response that was so egregiously awful and harmed their own case that a sur-reply could usefully point that out.
The best document of the lot is the direct response to MoRon's opening brief on fees, and has the best argued and best cited arguments. This is partly just because the case law is not just against MoRon's argument but verbosely and repeatedly so. Even the cases they cited themselves harm them more than help them. Also, unlike any other parts of Chupp's rulings, he actually presented at least some reasoning supporting his opinion on the record, albeit orally in the hearing itself. I also think they put a good deal of work into it, and possibly already had something in their brief bank on this kind of appellate issue.
Remember the worst case scenario here is that not only does Vic lose every single TCPA opinion, but also gets hit with the full amount MoRon are demanding. That worst case scenario, as unlikely as it ever was, I think vanishes at this point. It just doesn't stand at all. An appeals court isnt' going to overrule a discretionary decision like that when it is solidly supported by evidence in the record that was, moreover, put there by the moving parties and their codefendants.
All the other points were adequately argued in the opening brief and at least the sur-replies don't actually make anything worse.
They put all their points into charisma instead of intelligence.
Have you seen Lemoine?
