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CGC et al To Aggressively Defend Against Lawsuit Filed In Pennsylvania
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584 posts in this topic

On 10/20/2019 at 11:29 PM, Mark Zaid said:

I wanted to alert everyone to a decision that was issued by the Pennsylvania Superior Court, which is the appellate court that heard the appeal in the current lawsuit, on October 18, 2019. The Court has reversed the decision of the trial court to dismiss the case outright on summary judgment. This decision did not determine the liability of any party but held that as a matter of law the lower court should not have reached the decisions it did, i.e., the decisions were for the jury to determine rather than the court.

I can state outright that we believe the Superior Court decision contained numerous and significant errors of fact and law. The defending parties are considering all available options as to next steps.

You can read the decision here:  

Appellate Court Decision

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The Pennsylvania Superior Court denied without opinion our request for reconsideration. Yesterday, we filed a Petition for Review to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. An appeal to this court is not one of right. It has to be accepted. The defendants' response is due in 15 days. 

We will continue to keep the community up to date on significant developments.

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2 hours ago, MatterEaterLad said:

Wondering if anyone has heard an update on this?

Confusing. Some sites say dismissed, others say the lawsuit was reinstated. I imagine you would have to be one of the litigants, associates, or the court to know where everything stands at present. 

Edited by James J Johnson
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6 hours ago, mattn792 said:

The case number is 391 EDA 2019

You can look up the docket at https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/DocketSheets/Appellate.aspx

Last activity was some procedurals in August, this was entered in July:  “Order Denying Petition for Allowance of Appeal to PA Supreme Court”.

This is not good

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Looks like the appeal by CGC was denied in July.

Does this mean The Meyers won?

And now what, damages?

It's not like there isn't 745 lawyers on here to explain this stuff... :baiting:

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3 hours ago, Beige said:

It's not like there isn't 745 lawyers on here to explain this stuff... :baiting:

Clearly I am not a lawyer and pretty much fell asleep tring to read that.  zzz

Reads like a bunch of gobbledygook to me is all that I can really say.  O.o  (:

Edited by lou_fine
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This link still works. It takes you to the original lawsuit filed by IGB against CGC and Heritage. 
 

https://www.docdroid.net/Dx6w7uS/complaint.pdf.html

 

i think a Readers Digest summary of the dispute is that CGC felt that the IGB work was less of a restoration project of a preexisting book, and more of a total invention out of thin air. Accordingly, CGC refused to grade their work. IGB cried “foul” and said they’d been defamed.

does anyone know if IGB is still at it?

Edited by GreatCaesarsGhost
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Going back a few pages, one of Zaid's posts mentions that the trial court dismissed IGB's action outright.  ("After the trial court dismissed their action in its entirety, the Defendants appealed to Superior Court, which is the next level appellate court.")

IGB then appealed to the Superior Court, who reversed that decision.  ("The Court has reversed the decision of the trial court to dismiss the case outright on summary judgment. This decision did not determine the liability of any party but held that as a matter of law the lower court should not have reached the decisions it did...")

CGC et al then appealed to the Supreme Court, but that action was denied.

So if I had to guess...since liability still hasn't been determined, the case has been remanded to the trial court for an eventual trial that will resolve this issue (barring more appeals of course).

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3 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

i think a Readers Digest summary of the dispute is that CGC felt that the IGB work was less of a restoration project of a preexisting book, and more of a total invention out of thin air. Accordingly, CGC refused to grade their work. IGB cried “foul” and said they’d been defamed.

I think the key word here is "felt". When asked to prove those feelings or assumptions, they couldn't. I'm guessing CGC is going to have to settle. 

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4 hours ago, mattn792 said:

Going back a few pages, one of Zaid's posts mentions that the trial court dismissed IGB's action outright.  ("After the trial court dismissed their action in its entirety, the Defendants appealed to Superior Court, which is the next level appellate court.")

IGB then appealed to the Superior Court, who reversed that decision.  ("The Court has reversed the decision of the trial court to dismiss the case outright on summary judgment. This decision did not determine the liability of any party but held that as a matter of law the lower court should not have reached the decisions it did...")

CGC et al then appealed to the Supreme Court, but that action was denied.

So if I had to guess...since liability still hasn't been determined, the case has been remanded to the trial court for an eventual trial that will resolve this issue (barring more appeals of course).

The thing I can't figure out here is how in the world are the Meyers able to come up with the money to bankroll all of their lawyers to take take this claim of theirs right through to the various courts which we are talking about here?  Especially when they are barely getting any monies in at all with the books which they have spent countless hours working on.   ???

From a financial aspect, this almost looks like a fight pitting poor little David against that big nasty Goliath with the relatively much much deeper pockets that CGC, CCS, and their CCG ownership link companies would have behind them and we all know how that story ended.  hm

Edited by lou_fine
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8 hours ago, GreatCaesarsGhost said:

 that the IGB work was less of a restoration project of a preexisting book, and more of a total invention out of thin air.

This is a very good way to describe the finished product, IMO. I've seen some of these books and they are the next step beyond what we tend to think of as Frankenbooks. To me, it looks more like a clone. More like if Frankenstein started with just the fingernail of a corpse and then cloned the rest of the monster wearing that finger nail. The designation should be 10X extensive, a new category, as the designation "extensive" restoration falls short to describe what these are. Great call by CGC to decline grading these, IMO. Not just good, but a great call. They strike ma as being in the same category as when an artist draws a recreation of a cover, the original vs. the recreation.. How many CBCS 9.8 Hulk 1s now exist?  :facepalm:

Edited by James J Johnson
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5 hours ago, comicdonna said:

If IGB wins, it's my feeling this would be a big fail in the legal system.   If CGC could not tell where the original book ended and the resto began, why should they take a hit for refusing to grade the books?  This is the one time I see CGC turning down business for the good of the hobby.  This is wrong on so many levels.  

Not sure why you would feel this way as I would think from the judge's point of view in terms of being a layperson, as opposed to a comic book collector, that the big fail here really is more by CGC and their totally convoluted, irrational, and constantly changing definition of what actually constitutes restoration.  hm  (thumbsu

As another poster mentioned here on this topic before, if the purpose of restoration is to restore the book back to its original form as much as possible, if IGB is able to then perform this so well that even the so-called "experts" cannot tell what is original from what is restored or recreated, then is this not the definition of better or dare we say near perfect restoration?  hm  (shrug)

If we take the opposite approach and say that CGC should only be accepting books where restoration or any type of work done to improve a book should always be clearly identifiable, then does this not mean that CGC should not be accepting any books that might possibly be pressed (or whatever else) because they have clearly and conveniently stated that they cannot tell with 100% confidence if a book has been pressed or not if the work has been performed properly?  hm  (:

If they even go here, I can certainly just see the judge's eyes rolling O.o when CGC tries to explain all of the manipulative practices that were once viewed as restoration and that they themselves now happily partake in as they are no longer consider to be restoration.  Especially if you read CGC's own updated Restoration Grading Scale which in itself is totally contradictory as to what actually consitutes restoration and what does not.  :facepalm:

Then you toss in the fact that Matt and CGC/CCS were actually working with the Meyers in an attempt to perfect this technique of theirs at the start before Matt probably got too busy, disinterested, or whatever when he switched over to the CGC side of the business to continue any further with this endeavour.  My thinking is that if CGC/CCS and Matt were still involved with the Meyers at this stage of the process, instead of a lawsuit taking place, the ownership at CCG would have an additional revenue stream in place and collectors would be lining up to send in their pieces of comic books along with bags of wood pulp or wood chip into CCS to have these uber HG comic books restored recreated before they are sent down the hall for grading at CGC.  :devil:

If I was just a layperson and not a comic book collector, I could easily see a number of reasons why CGC, et al would lose this court case being filed by the Meyers against them.  hm

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22 minutes ago, lou_fine said:

Not sure why you would feel this way as I would think from the judge's point of view in terms of being a layperson, as opposed to a comic book collector, that the big fail here really is more by CGC and their totally convoluted, irrational, and constantly changing definition of what actually constitutes restoration.  hm  (thumbsu

As another poster mentioned here on this topic before, if the purpose of restoration is to restore the book back to its original form as much as possible, if IGB is able to then perform this so well that even the so-called "experts" cannot tell what is original from what is restored or recreated, then is this not the definition of better or dare we say near perfect restoration?  hm  (shrug)

If we take the opposite approach and say that CGC should only be accepting books where restoration or any type of work done to improve a book should always be clearly identifiable, then does this not mean that CGC should not be accepting any books that might possibly be pressed (or whatever else) because they have clearly and conveniently stated that they cannot tell with 100% confidence if a book has been pressed or not if the work has been performed properly?  hm  (:

If they even go here, I can certainly just see the judge's eyes rolling O.o when CGC tries to explain all of the manipulative practices that were once viewed as restoration and that they themselves now happily partake in as they are no longer consider to be restoration.  Especially if you read CGC's own updated Restoration Grading Scale which in itself is totally contradictory as to what actually consitutes restoration and what does not.  :facepalm:

Then you toss in the fact that Matt and CGC/CCS were actually working with the Meyers in an attempt to perfect this technique of theirs at the start before Matt probably got too busy, disinterested, or whatever when he switched over to the CGC side of the business to continue any further with this endeavour.  My thinking is that if CGC/CCS and Matt were still involved with the Meyers at this stage of the process, instead of a lawsuit taking place, the ownership at CCG would have an additional revenue stream in place and collectors would be lining up to send in their pieces of comic books along with bags of wood pulp or wood chip into CCS to have these uber HG comic books restored recreated before they are sent down the hall for grading at CGC.  :devil:

If I was just a layperson and not a comic book collector, I could easily see a number of reasons why CGC, et al would lose this court case being filed by the Meyers against them.  hm

The short version of my reply is :facepalm:

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