Slightly OT: Got a weird one regarding EMail logs and ISPs.

[JD Austin]

 I'm assuming this is small claims court and it's already past mediation.
I was on the other side of such a law suit - I was suing someone for work
performed that they didn't pay that they authorized.

I showed up in court with 300+ pages of emails, invoices, etc and he showed
up with about 10 pages of documentation.  I laid it all out chronologically,
tabbed it so it was easy to follow and presented one to the judge, the
defendant, and had one myself (the look on the defendant's face was
priceless).  It clearly documented what we agreed to, what was paid and on
what basis, and every other detail required to prove without a doubt that my
version was the truth.  Each side got to question the other in front of the
judge and I did a pretty good job of talking the defendant into a corner
using facts he did not dispute.  It helped that I managed to get the
defendant angry without getting angry myself. In the end it came down to the
defendant admitting that he'd received and paid previous invoices and that
he received and didn't pay the one in dispute.   I won and got paid.

Since then I've had a contract to spell out what was agreed upon and
screened my clients and who I work with much better.
Your friend needs to spend a considerable amount of time collecting the
documents to prove his side of the truth.  Specifically anything that states
what they actually agreed to.  It might be worth it to split the difference
considering how much time it takes to prepare.

JD
--
JD Austin
Twin Geckos Technology Services LLC
jd at twingeckos.com
480.288.8195x201
http://www.twingeckos.com


P. J. O'Rourke<http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/p/p_j_orourke.html>
- "If government were a product, selling it would be illegal."

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 10:32 PM, Jim March <1.jim.march at gmail.com> wrote:

> Not exactly Linux but then not exactly "not" either.
>
> Got a friend who got involved in a business deal that went south, now
> he's suing.  The guy he's suing sounds like a real winner and is
> claiming there's a couple grand worth of expenses my friend never
> agreed to.  Except the guy we'll call "the bad guy" for now has what
> he claims is an EMail in which my friend authorized the expenses in
> question.
>
> The bad guy has produced this EMail for a court.  It doesn't include
> header data - just the timestamp received at COX (late Jan. 2009),
> to/from info (allegedly from my friend's MSN.COM account to their
> COX.NET account), subject line and text.
>
> He says the EMail in question is fake, he never sent it.
>
> They could have easily faked it any number of ways, but the header
> data would of course be much harder to fake, and these guys ain't all
> that smart.  Right now he's telling the court it's a fake EMail (under
> oath on his part, sworn declaration) and he's doing a request for
> document production for the header data.
>
> Now assuming he's telling me the truth and he never sent that, I would
> assume the other side will claim they purged their electronic copy so
> they have no header data, if they're at all smart.
>
> Can he ask his paid ISP (msn bleah on a dial-up account paid to them
> gag) to show that they have no log for his outgoing mail of that
> subject line at that time, and that there would be one if the message
> is fake?  I would guess that as an MSN customer he doesn't need a
> court order to track data he allegedly sent?  OR if MSN doesn't keep
> such logs, is it possible COX does and he gets a court order for their
> logs, would COX keep that kind of thing?
>
> Any other thoughts on cracking this?
>
> I'm BCCing the friend...
>
> Jim
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