Lawsuit: Adjourned smokeyybunnyyy v. Commonwealth of Redmont [2024] FCR 103

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Jakovus said:
MOTION TO STRIKE

Your honour,

This statement speaks of potentially personal interactions unknown to the Plaintiff, from an irrelevant case, and is frankly being rude to this Court and our patience. The Plaintiff moves this be stricken and the Defendant given a second chance to provide an answer.

DATED: 20th July, 2024
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Objection
Breach of Procedure

A response to the objection is not only warranted by court policy, it was requested by the presiding judge. This motion is baseless and there is no reason it should have been made.
 
Jakovus said:
OBJECTION
Compound question

This question claims the offer was fair, and whether it was denied by the Plaintiff. It mustn't be phrased like so - The Plaintiff asks it be broken down or retracted, so that the Plaintiff may clearly respond to each one individually.
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Overruled. This objection relates to witnesses, not interrogatories.
 
Alexander P. Love said:
This is a loaded question, not a compound question. If I recall, you forced me to answer a loaded question by Ko before and charged me with perjury for addressing it. I believe that precedent should be upheld and the plaintiff be required to answer the question with a yes or no.
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Mr. Love, this is your one and only warning to refrain from being sassy or using the courtroom as a platform for unnecessary remarks.
 
Jakovus said:
MOTION TO STRIKE

Your honour,

This statement speaks of potentially personal interactions unknown to the Plaintiff, from an irrelevant case, and is frankly being rude to this Court and our patience. The Plaintiff moves this be stricken and the Defendant given a second chance to provide an answer.

DATED: 20th July, 2024
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Overruled. However, Mr. Love, please maintain a professional demeanor.
 
Alexander P. Love said:
Objection
Breach of Procedure

A response to the objection is not only warranted by court policy, it was requested by the presiding judge. This motion is baseless and there is no reason it should have been made.
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Overruled.
 
Discovery has now concluded. We will proceed to opening statements. The Plaintiff has 72 hours to present their opening statement.
 
ORDER VACATING PERJURY​

Upon thorough deliberation and review, I have decided to reverse the perjury charge against Mr. Love. While I do not appreciate any attempts to circumvent justice, in this instance, perjury was not the appropriate remedy under the law.

Unseatedduke1
Judge


Deadlines are still in effect.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
OPENING STATEMENT

Your honour,

As the Plaintiff had already touched on all of their core points, let's revisit them and show why the Defendant's unlawful inaction damaged my client.

As established by precedent, bids are contract proposals, and each is an individual, autonomous proposal. Each bid builds based on the previous, allowing auctions to be competitive and fair. If a contract proposal is not made bona fide, and if it is based on knowingly false information, it is not a contract, nor a proposal for one; it is an illegitimate, legally worthless piece of paper. Bids that are not supported by financial means of the bidder, made with intent to soley make an individual counter the bid with a higher one, is not a valid proposal, but a sham, and that is supported by DCT guidelines and practice. Those were the circumstances in which the Plaintiff found herself, and which this very Commonwealth failed to remedy. Since the invalid bids, i.e. invalid contract proposals, incurred a supposedly valid contract proposal by the Plaintiff, who acted bona fide, it is more than reasonable to argue that the Plaintiff was misled, and not able to clearly judge the situation.

Now, the Commonwealth steps in. Upon finding all of this out, the sensible and right decision was to strike the invalid bids. What it failed, though, is to recognise that the Plaintiff was fraudulently led to the last bid they posted, which was based on fraudulent bids. This failed to remedy malicious intents of some to make the Plaintiff unduly pay more than necessary to acquire the property. All the Commonwealth had to do was reverse the bids, and justice would have been rightly served. But it failed, and upon an appeal, doubled down.

Regarding the attempt to settle the case out-of-court, the Defendant claimed that the Plaintiff acted in a manner incompatible with an amicable resolution of differences, and that, in doing so, proved she is greedy and wants to win this case for money, and not to remedy damage done to her. Of course, the evidence provided by the Plaintiff, which the Defendant initially failed to provide (it should be duly noted that the Plaintiff's counsel, upon further consideration, agrees with the Court's overturn of the perjury charge), the Defendant acted grossly unprofessionally and in bad faith, belittling the case's merits and insulting the Plaintiff counsel's competence. It is for these reasons, as well as the opinion how the compensation provided was insufficient, that the Plaintiff retreated from the settlement.


DATED: This 23rd day of July, 2024
 
The Defense has 72 hours to submit their opening statement.
 
Your Honor, @v__d and I are the new prosecutors on this case and would like to request an extension of 24 hours to familiarize ourselves with the case.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
Opening Statement

Thank you, Your Honor.

DCT policy clearly dictates that the highest valid bid after an invalid bid wins the auction by default (https://www.democracycraft.net/threads/eviction-auction-policy.17176/). The plaintiff’s bid was the highest valid bid after the invalid bid, and therefore is the default winner of the auction. Nowhere in DCT policy does it state that the next lower bid would win the auction, only the next higher bid.

It is the DCT’s job to regulate auctions under their jurisdiction, and they would be responsible for taking appropriate and legal action against the player who submitted a false bid. It is indeed the DCT’s legal remedy of this to issue a punishment to the player who bid without appropriate funds, however it is also the DCT’s responsibility to follow policy.

All bids submitted are legally binding. It would take a simple command in-game or even on the discord (/balance player) to check that the bidder’s bid was invalid. It is not unreasonable for a player to run a basic command on discord or in-game before bidding for a plot, especially with this much money being bid.

The plaintiff failed to do their duty of simply double checking before creating their bid and that is the reality of the situation. The DCT was simply following department policy.
 

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IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
WRIT OF SUMMONS

@smokeyybunnyyy and @The_Superior10 is required to appear before the court in the case of smokeyybunnyyy v. Commonwealth of Redmont . Failure to appear within 48 hours of this summons will result in a Contempt of Court charge.
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Present, your honor.
 
Present, your honor
 
@Jakovus You may begin questioning the witnesses. Please direct your questions to both witnesses at the same time within the next 24 hours. Witnesses, please respond within 24 hours. Any follow-up questions should also be asked within 24 hours after the witnesses' responses.
 
Your Honor, 24 hours have passed without a response from the plaintiff.
 
Indeed. Mr. Wolf, You may begin questioning the witnesses. Please direct your questions to both witnesses at the same time within the next 24 hours. Witnesses, please respond within 24 hours. Any follow-up questions should also be asked within 24 hours after the witnesses' responses.
 
The_Superior10:

1. What is the official policy of the DCT in regards to if a bid is invalid but there is a higher bid that had been filed?
 
Mask3D_WOLF said:
The_Superior10:

1. What is the official policy of the DCT in regards to if a bid is invalid but there is a higher bid that had been filed?
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1. The higher bid (must be valid) is taken as the winning bid.
 
Thank you, that is all.
 
The Plaintiff has 72 hours to submit their closing statements.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
CLOSING STATEMENT

Your honour,

It is clear, from the case and evidence, that the State helped procure an illegal and illegitimate agreement, even after the Plaintiff warned the Commonwealth several times, through several means. The Plaintiff was tricked into giving out an unnecessarily higher bid, something reasonably expected they would not have done if they knew of the fraudulent bids prior. The State helped EddieGonza in their plan to force a higher payout by the Plaintiff when it refused to return the official bid of the Plaintiff back to the legitimate one, failing to recognise that the Plaintiff was not duly informed of the real situation when making an agreement offer. The Plaintiff was, thus, misled, and facts misrepresented to her. No one could have reasonably expected of her to anticipate this.

No one can reasonably expect her to go and track balances of other bidders. That is the job of DCT! Always was, and will be, because they are the ones responsible for making sure orderliness of auctions, their execution and legality. If that was not the case, and DCT turned a blind eye, that would open up the possibility of illegitimate bidding skyrocketing, as DCT is apparently not responsible for ensuring their legality.

The Government entered negotiations with the Plaintiff half-heartedly, in a vain and utterly disrespectful manner, and then accused the Plaintiff of sabotaging the settlement. It is only apparent that it was never the Government's goal to make the Plaintiff truly free of her damages. Now is the time for you, the Judge, to make sure the contract laws are upheld, that the Government start taking serious steps in protecting bidders from similar frauds, and to make sure the Government takes their role in protecting citizens seriously.

Thanks to all parties involved.

DATED: This 1st day of August, 2024
 
The defense has 72 hours to submit their closing statements.
 
IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
Closing Statement

Thank you, Your Honor.

This case is quite simple. The DCT was only following their policy when deciding the outcome of the auction.

DCT policy clearly states that the highest bid after an invalid bid wins the auction (https://www.democracycraft.net/threads/eviction-auction-policy.17176/). The plaintiff’s bid was the highest bid after the invalid bid, and therefore is the winner of the auction. The witness called, an employee of the DCT, confirmed this.

This case is simple, let’s stick to written policy.
 
Court is recess pending verdict.
 

Verdict


IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF REDMONT
VERDICT

smokeyybunnyyy v. Commonwealth of Redmont [2024] FCR 103

I. PLAINTIFFS POSITION
1. The Plaintiff argues that during the auction for plot C514, fraudulent bids from a third party, EddieGonza420, artificially raised the bid amounts. This misled the Plaintiff into placing a higher bid of $18,000, which should have been reverted to the last legitimate bid of $15,000 once the fraudulent bids were annulled. The Plaintiff claims that the Department of Construction and Transport failed to apply its own guidelines and precedent consistently, thus breaching the Plaintiff’s rights under the Constitution.


II. DEFENDANT'S POSITION
1. The Defendant asserts that the Plaintiff entered a valid bid of $18,000, which constitutes a legally binding agreement. The Defendant argues that the Plaintiff should have verified the validity of competing bids before increasing their own. The Defendant also contends that the DCT is not bound by its own precedent, and its actions do not violate the equality clause of the Constitution. The Defendant maintains that DCT policy explicitly states that bids cannot be retracted.


III. THE COURT OPINION

  1. This ruling is based on the information presented by the parties and matters commonly known to the public. The court acknowledges that the defense did not contest the facts of the case, effectively affirming the sequence of events as described by the plaintiff. With these facts established, the court must now address the legal questions before it.
  2. Every department within the executive branch has a duty of care to uphold its constitutional obligations. For the Department of Construction and Transport, this includes the responsibility to conduct auctions fairly and in strict accordance with its guidelines. In the auction for plot R050, the DCT annulled an invalid bid that did not meet its guidelines and allowed the plaintiff to secure the property based on their last valid bid. The critical question here is why the DCT did not apply the same standard in the auction of plot C514, where similar circumstances were present. The defendant failed to provide a satisfactory explanation for this discrepancy. This inconsistency represents a breach of the DCT’s duty to apply its policies fairly and equally across all auctions.
  3. The fraudulent bids placed by EddieGonza420 misled the plaintiff into raising their bid, constituting what is known as fraudulent inducement. Since these bids were not permitted under DCT policy, they should have been invalidated, and the plaintiff’s subsequent bids should not have been considered, as they were made under the false belief that EddieGonza420’s bids were legitimate.
  4. The combination of fraudulent inducement and the DCT’s failure to apply its policies consistently across similar auctions constitutes a breach of duty that has resulted in damages to the plaintiff. As such, the plaintiff is entitled to recover the difference between the higher bid they were misled into making and the last legitimate bid.
  5. However, the court will not grant the plaintiff’s requests for punitive and emotional damages. The plaintiff did not provide sufficient evidence to substantiate a claim for emotional damages, such as witness testimony or photo evidence. The court declines to award punitive damages, considering the Commonwealth’s demonstrated willingness to settle the case out of court for an amount exceeding the difference in bids, which reflects an effort to remedy the situation.

IV. DECISION
In the matter of FCR 103, the court rules in favor of the Plaintiff with a modified prayer for relief.

  1. The difference between the higher and lower bid shall be refunded to the Plaintiff, amounting to $3,000.
  2. $1,000 in legal fees granted to Jakovus.


The Federal Court thanks all involved.



 
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