Topic: Miners, Consumer Protections (UCC), and Pre-orders - page 6. (Read 6906 times)

That's where I have the biggest problem... WHAT CONTRACT? there is no written contract agreed to by both sides. It's an implied contract at best and even then doubtful. It's a retail sale. And if it was a contract then the contractual terms would spell out consequences of the parties doing .

You are basing this on Missouri's UCC, however, to me it's not clear if BFL is in Missouri or Kansas... Looking into the privacy policy the address in there says Kansas. So which side of the river are they on?

Thanks everybody for all the responses.  I'm off to some "home work" and see if I can't find some court rulings to take a look at so can explore their relation and impact Ty for the inputs and focusing me on what I need to verify and elaborate on.  Time to find some more facts.  I'll post back here in a bit

You are quite right on that.  I don't really consider him and an "expert", just somebody that spends their days and nights thinking about it.  Much like most of us in the bitcoin community spend are time reading and learning about bitcoin.  I thought of it more as a litmus test as they are much more exposed to a broader range of information in their forums than we are here.  Sorry if I didn't make that clear

Respectfully, please stay on topic, there is another thread to behave this way on. 

I am trying my best to keep this independent of a direct discussion of BFL itself.  I really just want the community to consider legal rights independent of the emotion of a specific case, but as a tool for risk management.  I'm a firm believer that an educated customer is an asset and an uneducated customer is a liability.  Additionally, to be clear, this did not happen to me.  I currently have no complaint against BFL.  We have already have at least 1 thread talking about the specifics of that instance.

That being said, you are dead on that UCC on a federal level is merely a legal framework that was an attempt to unify/structure state regulation (my understanding is prior to this trade regulations were all over the board) and is preceded by state implementation.  The federal expression only seems to have effect if it's not defined on a state level (anybody confirm or deny this?).   In the specific instance your talking about, I do not believe (haven't been able to find) where there are any overriding "terms and conditions" aside from no-refunds and a "currently scheduled" date which were on the page at the time of ordering.  Though, I'd really like discuss this on a more abstract level for general consumer awareness sake .

Great input lets keep this rolling

Edit: in this case when talking about the specifics I'm referring to Missouri's implementation, not the Federal framework

As always ty for helping me along understanding this.  This is the most confusing part for me.  Some of the things I read make a distinction between "repudiation" and a desire to terminate a relations.  I really want to clarify this.  It would be great for consumers, if this is the case, and this is the most important definition in this document.  I will start searching for precedence in the courts to show guidance on this.   I so far haven't really seen anything.  I have seen mention of cases where a person orders, pays, and then gets their order canceled and refunded.  I haven't seen anywhere that draws a line between refusing to do deliver and the termination due to a desire to end a business relationship (where not bound by explicit contract or SLA).  I really think, only citation from a similar case in the courts would definitively resolve this.  As always, I'm willing to say I may be completely wrong (probably am lol ).  I'm just not sure that say "I no longer find our business relationship worth continuing" fully equates to saying "I am not going to deliver a product".  Hypothetical discussion won't really resolve this, so I'll take this issue to be homework and will try to search for a related case that will show court opinion on the matter.  Anybody who knows of a case, it would be a great help to link it Great discussion guys this is awesome fun

I'd encourage any amount of discussion or contribution that is intended to be productive.  I didn't directly link, because I was worried they might get jumped with a 100 btc users and their forum doesn't general deal with that many people descending on them at once I was probably being overly cautious and respectful.

I suggest that you review our past discussion on Missouri UCC. There are number of other heading of damages that can be sought in the case of breach of contract: "cover" costs, consequential damages, incidental damages, etc.

Nobody was talking about hurting anyone. That would be illegal.

Suing, though, is a different matter. It is great that Sonny and/or BFL may already have retained counsel (as it appears). Perhaps some of this discussion should be sent to them.

This is where the issue becomes, there is no written contract, it's implied, retail sale of goods implication. So in this instance it would be up to the court to make the aggrieved party whole. How would they do that? By ordering the refund of the purchase price. This has been done so what other remedy is available?

Thinking about suing?

Thinking about hurting Sonny Vleisides at BFL?

Think again!

http://www.martindale.com/Gregory-W-Vleisides/1035415-lawyer.htm

I was never claiming that UCC is a federal code. Rather, for the sake of the discussion, we were looking at Missouri's UCC, because that is where the member who has a complaint lives, and that was the agreed place of delivery for the goods. This was the original thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=207331.900

If you would like to check the (very brief ) terms and conditions of BFL, I suggest that you visit their site (https://products.butterflylabs.com/) and have a look at the information displayed before one places an order.

I am impressed with your close analysis of the UCC!  Unfortunately, you took a couple wrong turns. As a threshold matter, the UCC is not a federal code.  It is a uniform set of laws enacted to a greater or lesser extent in many states.  Also, it may not even be relevant here.  I'm happy to help guide you through from the beginning if you're truly interested in getting the correct answer.

Let's begin like this:

Ignore the UCC for the moment.  Cut and paste the text of the specific terms of the contract you entered into with BFL.  When you purchased your hardware, did you ever click "I agree to terms and conditions" or something of the like?  If so, that's your starting point.  The express written agreement of the parties overrides the UCC in almost all instances, so let's start there.

Second: Having read the conversation in your link, it seems the complaint with BFL is that it unilaterally cancelled your order. If that is the case, then you are trying to answer the question "was BFL's cancellation of your order a breach of the contract, and if it was, what is the measure of damages."  This will be very important going forward.

Looking forward to seeing your response!

It got so far only a single response.

You are quite right that the act of payment/purchase is omitted, and furthermore, that the "expert" seems to have overlooked the applicable provisions of UCC.

The act of purchase was glossed over. He also did not mention that the market value of the goods had risen in the intervening time, nor did he mention that full price was paid for goods that did not yet exist. It was not an order, or reservation, or deposit. It was a full purchase.

Tempting to add that tidbit to the thread over there and see if that changes things.

P.S. I noted the "Monica", but this is the internet and unfortunately the rules of TOGTFO apply. 

Endlessa posted the questions here:

http://www.expertlaw.com/forums/showthread.php?t=159009&p=713115

Feel free to review the case they posted and see if they actually did a good job of posing all the questions (with relevant material) attached.

The results sound fairly biased but who knows.

Thank you for explaining the law in simple terms.

The standard restitution for breach of forward contract is paying the market price for the contract, or providing comparable goods.

To parse the section that explains the damages for the breach of contract:

(a) the measure of damages
How much is owed.

in the case of wrongful failure to deliver by the seller or rightful rejection or justifiable revocation of acceptance by the buyer
If the seller does not produce the goods, or the buyer rejects the goods as delivered (defective, wrong goods, etc)

is the difference between the market price at the time for tender under the contract and the contract price
What the goods are worth now minus what the goods were worth when purchased. In this case 'tender' means delivery. The delivery was roughly $5K cash. The buyer is making a "rightful rejection" of that delivery.

together with any incidental or consequential damages under Section 2-715, but less expenses saved in consequence of the seller's breach; and

This refers to the following section of the UCC:


BFL can proactively decide not to do business with Xian. However, after having done business with him and entering a contract with him, the time for their right to refuse has come and gone.

I respectfully disagree. A 5 Gh/s miner has a calculable number of BTC that it can generate per month, and since BTC has a value (can be sold at an exchange), there is a clear monetary loss, and so one can prove consequential damages rather easily.

There is one point I wanted to correct:


A vendor can refuse to sell you additional items, beyond what you have already paid for.

But the vendor cannot lawfully cancel your order.

Cancelling your order is a form of repudiation of the contract (i.e., expressing clear intent to not perform the contract). Giving you a full refund does not alter that.