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The whole HuffPo story is one of the best stories out there – but I am bothered by the number of people here on Overlawyered who dismiss the case on “common-sense” grounds. This website would not exist if common sense could generally be counted on to prevail in a court of law.

Here you have a greedy corporation taking advantage of its employees, enriching itself by paying slave wages, exploiting the fact that the workers have little alternative means of selling their labor, ferreting out loopholes in the law that allows them to legally steal from the poor. And if those workers themselves have voluntarily agreed to such a one-sided contract, is this not evidence that they are either ignorant of their own self-interest or powerless to defend their interests? Shouldn’t those workers have advocates, someone in a better position to understand their own self-interests step in to use the law to defend their interests against the depredations of a heartless corporation? How could this not be a common-sense view of justice in a larger sense being served?

Keep in mind that I am not necessarily advocating this position, I am merely raising the question : “If you look at this from the plaintiffs point of view, is there not some merit to this case? Are there not plenty of intelligent people who would and could and did make this argument?”

And before you so hastily dismiss the question, go back and read that second paragraph and imagine that the “greedy corporation” I am referring to is Walmart and the “advocates” are ummmm…….people like Arianna Huffington.

C’mon people. Let’s admit it. As much as we may wish for common sense to prevail in these sorts of cases as a general principle, aren’t we all secretly praying for the plaintiffs to prevail in this particular case? Aren’t we really hoping to see a real-life explication of the phrase “hoist on ones own petard”?

Or maybe I really am the only one who will admit that sometimes I get up in the middle of the night and sneak out to the kitchen and eat all the left-over birthday cake, sometimes when I am alone and flipping through the channels I stop and watch TMZ for a little bit, sometimes when I see my 85 year old neighbor hobble down the driveway to gather her morning newspaper a little part of me thinks it would be funny to see her slip and fall, and sometimes I think it would be so sweet to see somebody win a meritless lawsuit against somebody who truly deserves to lose a meritless lawsuit.

Sorry, Jerry, but maybe you are at the wrong blog.

I don’t like Adrinia and I never liked PuffHo, but I have seen no indication to believe that she twisted anyone’s arm to make them write for her site for free. Or any indication that she ever told anyone, write for me for free and when I sell this site for a boatload of money I’ll share some of it with you. That I believe is the basics of American contract law.

This isn’t about good vs. evil, this is about right vs. wrong. There is a difference.

And while I might have kyped a sliver of my son’s chocolate chip birthday cookie cake many years ago, I have never thought a fractured hip on anyone at any age was funny. From my perspective you need not bare your soul anymore, it did not resonant favorably with me.

But someone else’s mileage may vary.

Schadenfreude isn’t one of my major motivators. I take no relish from other people’s pain and slapstick comedy is my least favorite.

I do, however, appreciate the power of contract, even if I end up on the wrong side of a bad decision. If I sign up for something that ends up poorly for me–it’s happened–then I own up to responsibility for my own bad choices. I also own the consequences.

People who write for blogs do not anticipate free money for the most part. The return for writing on or for a major blog is the assumed large number of eyeballs that will see that writing. Perhaps some will appreciate it; perhaps some might offer a position somewhere that pays for it. But unless and until there’s a contract that specifies “We will pay X for your writing Y”, there’s simply no contract. There’s just an agreement in which both sides see a favorable outcome.

Show me the contract, play for me the recording of anything approaching a contract, and I might change my mind.

Sure, it would have been great for the writers if Huffington had said, “Oh, my golly! I got so much for this and so many people helped, I’ll divvy up the harvest among all the worker bees.” Outside of an actual beehive (or socialist commune or some religious communities), life doesn’t work like that. Now, I realize that some who write for Huffington Post might see themselves as parts of a commune or sharing in a socialist religion, but they actually aren’t. They’re capable and assumed competent human beings. If they thought no further than the next posting or comment thread, that’s on their heads.

I might even be swayed in their direction if they can come up with pre-sale requests for remuneration. I’ve heard of nothing like that existing though…

The whole Huffington Post fiasco is pure comedy gold:

Leftist useful idiot tools slave on the democrat party plantation churning out endless propaganda, expecting something other than the obvious total exploitation they freely signed up for. It is a microcosm for the super-wealthy money class running the democrat party currently.

Smart Dude, I think you almost understood my point – this is pure comedy gold.

Bumper and John, I think you are doing a fine job of illustrating exactly my point about the “common sense” view of this case. Are you seriously suggesting that if you were giving legal advice to Arianna Huffington, you would tell her, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to prepare any sort of defense for this lawsuit, this is a silly lawsuit and has no chance of going anywhere”? If you have visited this website more than twice, you know that there is no assertion so ridiculous that some lawyer somewhere won’t take a check to make that assertion in a court of law.

And I especially would disagree with one assertion – this isn’t about good or evil *or* about right or wrong – it’s about how screwed up the system is that good or evil or right or wrong no longer matters.

Jerryskids — so you’re saying that submission of OpEds to the WSJ entitles one to compensation if Gannett is sold for a profit?

Jerryskids- how are they employees? I understood that they were voluntary unpaid bloggers. Doesn’t sound like they were employees at all. Further, assuming they were employees, it still doesn’t follow they should share in the sale.

In my experience, when a company gets sold, the employees are mostly worried about whether they’ll still have jobs when new management takes over, not whether they’re getting a piece of the sale price. If they have jobs, then they’re wondering about how much their paychecks and benefits packages are going to get hit.

Outside of maybe GM, when the USG bought a piece of the action, I’m simply not aware of employees profiting from a corporate sale.

Perhaps it’s ‘common sense’, but perhaps it’s also the law of contracts. If there’s no contract, then there’s no law to apply.

I perhaps am being too subtle here.

The HuffPo lawsuit is a worthless piece of garbage. We are all agreed on that. But if your defense against a lawsuit consists of “this lawsuit is a worthless piece of garbage and anybody with an ounce of common sense can see that”, you are grasping a thin reed indeed. Our legal system does not necessarily have anything to do with common sense, or , as a wise man once said, it is a “…. legal system that too often turns litigation into a weapon against guilty and innocent alike, erodes individual responsibility, rewards sharp practice, enriches its participants at the public’s expense, and resists even modest efforts at reform and accountability.”

That being said, the common sense view of this would seem to be – in a quote from Arianna Huffington herself –

“That’s because no contract was broken. As Wall St. Cheat Sheet’s Damien Hoffman puts it:

In contract law, so long as two consenting parties agree to exchange legal services for reasonable consideration, the merits of the exchange are not for other parties to judge…….”

That is why this is so deliciously ironic. Arianna Huffington has had no problem whatsoever – as have politicians and activists and busybodies of all stripes – in interjecting herself into exchanges freely entered into by consenting parties. Whence this strange new respect for keeping your nose out of other peoples business?

You were to subtle. I agree with what you said.

Tom Sawyer collected the fee for painting the fence. He never paid his crew, and as I recall, a good time was had by all.

Jon, Tom Sawyer didn’t collect a fee for whitewashing the fence. He was assigned to do it without a fee by his guardian, Aunt Polly. He collected fees in barter from those he recruited to whitewash the fence for him.

Yes, and had ‘his crew’ sued for breach of contract, they would have had no case as they had no contract. Had they sued for unjust enrichment, however………

Which is what this lawsuit is based on. To the extent that you argue “they had no contract, they have no right to sue”, you are offering no defense to the lawsuit. Arianna Huffington is offering just that argument in the court of public opinion, but she would be a fool to offer that argument in a court of law.

Jonathan Tasini, on the other hand, offers this argument in the court of public opinion: “It’s very important to understand the hypocrisy here. We are going to make Arianna Huffington a pariah in the progressive community”.

Within the progressive community, hypocrisy seems to trump everything. (For example, observe the fact that both Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich cheated on their wives yet it only seems to bother the progressive community that Newt was being hypocritical about it. Cheating on your wife shows no lack of character, cheating on your wife while proclaiming that as a general rule one should not cheat on ones wife is an unforgivable sin.) The progressives have long argued that wealth gained through capitalist activity is prima facie evidence of wrongdoing, it would be hypocritical of Arianna Huffington to now argue otherwise. (Inherited wealth, for some strange reason, does not seem to bother them as much.)

Insofar as Tasini makes his case in the court of public opinion within the progressive community, he will win it by forcing HuffPo to offer a settlement to avoid the PR disaster of appearing hypocritical. Insofar as Arianna Huffington continues to offer the rather Leona Helmsleyesque argument that it’s her money and the ‘little people’ have no legal right to the money, she will lose her case.

And that’s the problem here – it may not matter to your case whether you are right or wrong as a matter of law. It may matter more if you are right or wrong as a matter of ‘social justice’. And the progressives are the self-anointed arbiters of social justice.

STILL laughing at the phrase “a pariah in the progressive community”…

Now THERE’S a threat!

Or is he saying the “progressive community” is caste-bound?

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