Legal Action against cheaters in PB?

[SlartyBartFast]

You *MIGHT* have a case against the player that caused the injury. You could convince the police and prosecutor to lay charges of assult and battery. Heck, in Canada assault with a paintball marker would fall under the criminal code for firearm offences.

But good luck.

As far a sueing because you lost on account of the other team cheating? Very doubtful you could make anything stick in court. You would have to prove everyone from the field crews right on up to the promoters were negligent, irresponsible, and didn't do enough to stop the cheating. You might even have to prove they deliberately fixed the competition for you to get a ruling in your favour. As a minimum you'd have to prove that all available arbitration and appeals were used and that you weren't bound by any rules or agreements governing tournament officials decisions. If the rules say the official's decision is final and you can't proove a conspiracy on the part of the officials, you'll be out of luck.

As for who should be sued, those that say they hate lawsuits that sue everyone dopn't know what they're talking about. In a lawsuit you MUST name everyone who is even remotely involved or could have even the slightest possibility of involvement. The reason is simple: you want to get 100% of your settlement. If you name only one defendant, that defendant can blame someone else and you might have to take that other party to court. With everyone named, your money and court time goes towards determining if you should be compensated. The time and money of all the defendants will later be used to determine who owes how much.

[TAG]

-----Waivers ------
Let us treat this topic as if no waiver was signed to eliminate any confusion over the waiver issue.
I have discussed waivers with MANY firms and we have not found a case where they held up in the case of criminal assault. I might not be calling the right people though....so for this one no waiver has been signed.

[Lohman446]

As far a sueing because you lost on account of the other team cheating? Very doubtful you could make anything stick in court. You would have to prove everyone from the field crews right on up to the promoters were negligent, irresponsible, and didn't do enough to stop the cheating. You might even have to prove they deliberately fixed the competition for you to get a ruling in your favour. As a minimum you'd have to prove that all available arbitration and appeals were used and that you weren't bound by any rules or agreements governing tournament officials decisions. If the rules say the official's decision is final and you can't proove a conspiracy on the part of the officials, you'll be out of luck.
.

I think your right to a degree. I think all I would have to show is an intentional act (not a bad call, an intentional act) by a single ref that influenced the outcome... I think at that point the promotor and series may have an issue in civil liability standards.

[TAG]

Lets say we have this on tape or it can be proven with some other electronic device. Lets leave human integrity out of it for now.

[Lohman446]

Lets say we have this on tape or it can be proven with some other electronic device. Lets leave human integrity out of it for now.

I think... if you violated / or encouraged violation of ASTM standards you are going to be found liable for injury in civil court.

I think there is a criminal issue that is present but less obvious

[SlartyBartFast]

I think your right to a degree. I think all I would have to show is an intentional act (not a bad call, an intentional act) by a single ref that influenced the outcome... I think at that point the promotor and series may have an issue in civil liability standards.

I don't think it would be that easy. The promoter isn't responsible for the misdeeds of the refereeing staff unlesss they can be held negligent in their selection or supervision.

[Lohman446]

I don't think it would be that easy. The promoter isn't responsible for the misdeeds of the refereeing staff unlesss they can be held negligent in their selection or supervision.

You sure? If one of my employees commits fraud (we are talking intentionally cheating, blatant intentional acts here - like wiping a player clean). I am liable at least in a civil matter. At least the corporation is, I guess I personally may not be. Is the same not true in this? Why wouldn't it be? And now that I have used the word fraud... are criminal issues possible against the person committing it - though in here it surely would not extend to the league.

Edit: I guess this is getting off from a tangent of ramping though... and into wiping. Here is my stance on ramping: I think it may be an improvement to the game... that being said I am not comfortable, due to criminal liability issues, using a mode that is not ASTM compliant on the playing field.

[Army]

I'm not sure about legal issues here. In all sports, it is accepted that there is a level of some danger and possible injury inherent to the physical aspects of the play.

I doubt any court would even allow this to be filed.

Right now, teams and/or individuals simply lose that game, or usually just get a "two-fer" elimination.

I want major penalties to be assessed for cheating. The rules are clear, with pages of listed violations that must not be performed before, during, or after play, they all spell out: "Don't Cheat!" Shooting too fast, too many, after time, after an out, or with a marker that violates the rules, should be met with TEAM elimination and a forfeiture of ALL tourney fees, and possibly individual fines.

When it starts to hurt the sponsors, is when we will see real change.

[GA Devil]

the main focus of legal action on this should be not someone cheated and won because of it but that there are certain cheats being used that are physically damaging (ramping velocity). not that someone wiped and won cause of it.

[BigEvil]

Unfortunately, it will take legal action with a serious monatery award to a plaintif for the tourney scene to get its act together. For too long, many people, companies, teams, and most of the industry in general have let this type of behavior slide. Not only that, but when you bring it up they look at you and give you a wink and a nod.

I say if you can win, sue the balls off of the offender. Maybe the time has come to draw the line in the sand.

[Tunaman]

I think... if you violated / or encouraged violation of ASTM standards you are going to be found liable for injury in civil court.

I think there is a criminal issue that is present but less obvious

ALL of these ramping guns/boards are in violation of ASTM Standards. One shot-one pull is the only acceptable standard. TK was the only smart one. He didn't stick his neck out so someone could sue him. How did he know this was coming?...

[Tunaman]

I'm not sure about legal issues here. In all sports, it is accepted that there is a level of some danger and possible injury inherent to the physical aspects of the play.

I doubt any court would even allow this to be filed.

Right now, teams and/or individuals simply lose that game, or usually just get a "two-fer" elimination.

I want major penalties to be assessed for cheating. The rules are clear, with pages of listed violations that must not be performed before, during, or after play, they all spell out: "Don't Cheat!" Shooting too fast, too many, after time, after an out, or with a marker that violates the rules, should be met with TEAM elimination and a forfeiture of ALL tourney fees, and possibly individual fines.

When it starts to hurt the sponsors, is when we will see real change.

BRAVO! I second this motion!

[hitech]

Should you be able to take legal action? Would you take legal action if you could?

Yes. You certainly could file a civil lawsuit. Bob Long seriously considered doing so when he thought we (myself and a friend of mine) were told we couldn't ref the finals. He believed that the refs were cheating for the other team on "our" field in the finals. Before talking to us he thought we were told we won't be reffing the finals as we wouldn't have allowed this to happen. The problem was that we didn't ref the finals because the only flights we could get made catching them really tight. And they always had plenty of people back then (less fields in use for the finals, back in the woodsball days).

If you feel legal action should be taken where should it stop? At the player or hold the electronics designer responsible if he produced the products that caused both incidents?

You don't stop anywhere. That's just the way it works. Regardless, I think everyone should be required to abide by ASTM standards.

[SlartyBartFast]

BRAVO! I second this motion!

While I would like to third the motion, I have a large caveat:

Check out ANY of the times rules and cheating are discussed. Good luck getting people to agree on which rules they like and how they think they should be enforced.

Getting a tournament to adopt revised rules and enforce them? Damn near impossible.

[Evil Bob]

Ramping velocity occurs to overcome design limitations, its there to allow the markers to fire faster then their valve designs are really capable of achieving.

Most valve designs out there can't recharge to their full operating pressure state fast enough to keep up with anything over 12 bps, the lower the input pressure, the longer it takes to achieve peak state which is the primary reason mags are still high pressure input instead of low pressure, its one of the few valve systems that can physically keep up with the high RoF's. Since the other manufacturers can't recharge fully fast enough, they overcome the limitation by increasing the valve dwell time in their software once a given RoF minimum has been achieved as they will experience high shootdown without increasing the dwell rate. This increases the volume of air that goes to the ball and increases the exit velocity as a result. Once the marker RoF slows down to where the valve recharge is able to keep up on its own, the software lowers the dwell to its original setting and the marker is once again at its initial chrono speed.

The only real way to prevent said ramp in velocity is to have tighter control over the software range and the dwell increase progression, so that as the speed increases, its a gradual deal. But anyone who's done this type of programming knows that there are physical limitations as to what you can and cannot put into the code to fit the chip on the board, the more goodies you got, the more corners you have to cut to acheive your overall results. Since most manufacturers could careless about ASTM standards, I dont see them caring much about controling ramping velocity until something catastrophic happens and insuing legal action forces them to make changes.

-Evil Bob