Cards Against Humanity, SpaceX Settle Lawsuit Over Misused Border Land Parcel
from the booted dept
Way back in Trump’s first term, back when he was still claiming he was going to build some enormous border wall and get Mexico to pay for it (neither happened), the lovely people over at Cards Against Humanity bought a parcel of land along the boarder with the intention of taking every possible action to prevent a wall being built upon it. It was part of a marketing campaign where a percentage of sales of the game would go to buying the land, which eventually happened in 2017. And that’s where things stood for the rest of Trump’s term and all the way up to 2024. No wall was built on the land, Mexico paid for nothing, and the land remained empty.
Until, that is, SpaceX decided to dump a bunch of trash on it. The Elon Musk-owned company has a fabrication plant nearby and apparently just decided to use someone else’s property to dump a bunch of construction materials and trash. The irony that a parcel of land that was bought to keep a border wall from being built to keep out foreign trespassers that was instead trespassed upon domestically is not lost on me.
Well, CAH sued for $15 million and seemed like it had a very good case. SpaceX must have eventually agreed, as they have now settled the case days before the trial was set to begin.
A court document shows that SpaceX admitted it did not ask for or receive permission to use the property. SpaceX admitted that its “contractors cleared the lot and put down gravel,” parked vehicles on the property, and stored construction materials. An Associated Press article yesterday said that “Texas court records show a settlement was reached in the case last month, just weeks before a jury trial was scheduled to begin on Nov. 3.”
The game company said a victory at trial wouldn’t have resulted in a better outcome. “A trial would have cost more than what we were likely to win from SpaceX,” the company’s statement to Ars said. “Under Texas law, even if we had won at trial (and we would have, given their admission to trespassing), we likely wouldn’t have been able to recoup our legal fees. And SpaceX certainly seemed ready to dramatically outspend us on lawyers.”
Given that the details of the settlement are annoyingly confidential, we can’t really suss out just how just this outcome is. But the folks over at CAH seem to be satisfied, so I have to imagine at least a decent amount of money changed hands here. Still, part of the idea here was supposed to be sending money won from Musk to all the donors to the campaign, but it appears the settlement money won’t be enough to do so in an update CAH provided publicly.
Dear Horrible Friends,
Remember last year, when we sued Elon Musk for dumping space garbage all over your land, and then you signed up to collect your share of the proceeds? Also, remember how we warned you that we’d “probably only be able to get you like two dollars or most likely nothing”?
Well, Elon Musk’s team admitted on the record that they illegally trespassed on your land, and then they packed up the space garbage and fucked off. But when it comes to paying you all, he did the legal equivalent of throwing dust in our eyes and kicking us in the balls.
So while we can’t give you what you really wanted––cash money from Elon Musk––we’re going to make it up to you, our best, sexiest customers…with comedy! We’re sending you each a brand new mini-pack of exclusive cards all about Elon Musk, which you can sign up to receive for free right here.
You’ve got to give it to these folks: they’re never not on brand.
Filed Under: cards against humanity, elon musk, settlement, texas, trespassing
Companies: cards against humanity, spacex
Comments on “Cards Against Humanity, SpaceX Settle Lawsuit Over Misused Border Land Parcel”
Hey Elon: sit and spin!!!!!
Doh! I backed the land purchase, but didn’t sign up for the lawsuit, so I don’t qualify for the mini-pack.
we can’t really suss out just how just this outcome is
Assuming Cards against Humanity is not lying about the lack of payout to their supporters, the absolute best case scenario is:
1) The lawyers got whatever they charged for the work up to this point.
2) SpaceX got use of the land at the cost of whatever the lawyers charged.
3) Cards against Humanity got nothing.
Is that just?
I think that the confidentiality is part of why CAH can’t send money to backers. It probably risks exposing the amount paid.
Or maybe Musk put something into the settlement that specifically banned distributing the money.
Why is everything always "confidential"?
Why are these settlements always confidential?
A settlement is supposed to be an agreement between the parties.
If, as in this case, one of the parties is there for moral reasons, i.e the principle of the thing, then it seems reasonable that one of their fundamental requirements for any settlement would be that it NOT be confidential.
Anything else undermines the reason they were there in the first place.
Re:
They mentioned that it was going to cost more to litigate than settle (likely for both parties) so the leverage needed to insist on transparency would have been much more costly and the point was to get Musk to pay out.
Guilt or innocence should be based upon facts, not bank account
The game company said a victory at trial wouldn’t have resulted in a better outcome. “A trial would have cost more than what we were likely to win from SpaceX,” the company’s statement to Ars said. “Under Texas law, even if we had won at trial (and we would have, given their admission to trespassing), we likely wouldn’t have been able to recoup our legal fees. And SpaceX certainly seemed ready to dramatically outspend us on lawyers.”
Example 894,384,556 of why the US legal system is broken as hell(or working great depending on your POV) and in need of serious reform if not being rebuilt from the ground up.
‘Even if we win, and we would, we’d still come out worse than if we didn’t take the matter to court to begin with’ is not the sign of a healthy legal system or one that isn’t pay-to-win.
Re:
Truly. Adversarial shit and advocacy has its place, but so does some mechanism for dispassionately pointing out indisputable facts to short circuit inefficiency and lawfare.
There are elements of the two major judicial system which are shockingly not mutually exclusive even though we like to pretend they are. Elements of both could be thoughtfully merged and upgraded.
Re:
The state of the legal system is such that having to engage the system and assert your rights is itself a penalty, regardless of whether you’re in the right. Any sufficiently funded individual could bankrupt any random person with a dogged legal team filing frivolous lawsuits that would cost time, effort, and emotional labor to deal with. Even winning in the end and getting a giant settlement or penalty paid out doesn’t compensate people for the burden of the experience or make up for the sleepless nights and health effects.
Kafka’s The Trial was a warning, but the US justice system uses it as a manual and planning guide.
fabrication plant nearby and apparently just decided to use someone else’s property to dump a bunch of construction materials and trash.
Ah, yes. The history of every fucking industry ever.