ORIGINAL: fep
I've worked for a NYSE traded company that was the victim of several shakedown lawsuits. To add what Yep has said, part of the shakedown is they request outrageous amounts of records and start deposing all the executives. It is a total disruption to the Companies goal of trying to run a profitable business.
Our countries legal system is truly screwed up and it does not favor big business, it favors law firms.
Also, this kind of thing is certainly not less disruptive to small business than to big.
Fep is right on about this-- if you are a large corporation and you are having to dig up thousands of pages of documents and have seven-figure executives travelling and/or spending hours or days in depositions, then it is WAY cheaper to simply pay off the plaintiff to the tune of a few grand than to try and fight them, never mind the massive disruption and expense of having your corporate executives actually appearing in court.
If you are a small businees owner, the damage can be just as bad or worse. Very often, *you* are the one who has to physically respond to each and every demand of the opposition counsel. They can have interns and $15/hr paralegals phtotocopy demand letters en masse for outlandish correspondence requests or whatever and you are the person who has to stay up till 3am trying to dig it all up. Again, if they are demanding $1,000 plus 1% of revenues there are probably a lot of people who are paying the protection money.
I am not in favor of passing new laws, but I am in favor of spreading the word on all forums that you frequent and among all the people you come into contact with. I think Monster made a mistake and I think they will pay for it.
Cheers.