On Fri, 28 Nov 2003 05:25:13 GMT, Ben Sego wrote:

Ron Wanttaja wrote:

Conceivably, he could amend his current SnF case to include his old
"conspiracy to defame" chestnut, and again name a batch of random
co-defendants, a'la his RAH-15 countersuit.

Good God. I suppose it could happen. Does he really have nothing else
to do? You'd think someone of his stature, esteem, and past
accomplishments would be engaged in more fruitful pursuits. Perhaps the
furtherance of his aeronautical, literary, and medical pursuits.

There are a number of possibilities. He could do it just to try to gum-up
SnF's legal team....Tony once told me that Zoom's attorney had privately
implied that the only reason for the RAH-15 suit was to increase Tony's
workload. Or, some of Campbell's ex-employees and associates describe him
as vengeful; filing lawsuits would just be another form of harassment.
Campbell has already sued at least five former employees, editors, or
writers.

Another possibility would be to establish a "history" to use against that
person should they ever testify against Zoom in another case. For
instance, why was Nauga Hyde one of the RAH-15? It would have been because
flight testing is his profession, and he'd already publicly pointed out
that one of Zoom's claims was not realistic. Vern Barr was probably named
because he was a former associate editor, Al Staats because he was a former
marketing manager. By naming them in a suit, Campbell had an argument
ready if any of these people testified as experts in any case against
Campbell ("They're not unbiased experts!").

One interesting bit of speculation regards Zoom's financial relationship
with the lawyer for SnF #2. Did the attorney take the case on a
contingency basis (he apparently specializes in civil-rights cases) or is
Campbell being billed for services rendered?

If the attorney is working on contingency, naming additional co-defendants
would significantly increase his workload but the amount of any potential
settlement would probably be about the same. If he's billing Campbell for
his time, you have to wonder how much of a 'war chest' Zoom has. As I
mentioned years ago on the RAH-15 case, just taking depositions from all 15
co-defendants would probably have added $50,000 or more to his legal bill.

And now Sun-n-Fun wants to expand to be a year-round draw. Wonder what
Zoom's response will be. Here's the story from the Orlando Sentinal:


Stuff like this could be why Zoom finally hit SnF with a second suit...too
many aviation events are taking advantage of the SnF facility, and he's
thus banned from all of them.

Still, this baffles me. Why go to the trouble of another suit? As
things stand, he can "report" whatever he wants. It's not as though
actual attendance would further inform his writing, is it? When you
have such a highly polished way with words, what would the encumberance
of facts contribute?

There are three basic reasons one might file a lawsuit.

1. To obtain regress for valid damages
2. To harass the defendant in order to force them to take a certain action
3. To gain publicity or sympathy

Number 3 seems to be right out, since Zoom apparently hasn't mentioned this
on his own web page. So we're left with #1 and #2.

Ron Wanttaja