1047

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CFJ 1047 

"General Chaos committed the Crime of Wrongful COE denial." 

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Judge:       Michael
Judgement:   TRUE

Justices:    Steve (S), Andre (C), elJefe (J) 
Decision:    Overturn and Reassign

New Judge:   Vir 
Judgement:   TRUE

Justices(2): Steve (S), Andre (C, defaulted), elJefe (J), Oerjan (pro-C),
Decision:    Overturn and reverse

             (Under the amended Rule 1693, a majority of Justices
             can determine the action of the Board.)

Final Judgement: FALSE 

Eligible:    Andre, Blob, Calabresi, ChrisM, Chuck, Crito,
             elJefe, General Chaos, Harlequin, Murphy, Oerjan, Steve, Vir, Vlad,
             Zefram

Not eligible: 
Caller:      Morendil
Barred:
On request:  Vanyel
On hold:     Swann
Past Judge:  Michael

Injunction (vacated): 

I hereby issue an Injunction requiring the Clerk of the Courts to execute
whatever Payment Orders are necessary to penalize General Chaos for this Crime.

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History:
  Called by Morendil, 27 Sep 1997 03:15:17 +0100
  Assigned to Michael, 1 Oct 1997 19:37:18 +0200 (MET DST)
  Judged TRUE by Michael, 7 Oct 1997 09:49:54 +0100
  Appealed by General Chaos, 09 Oct 1997 00:12:01 -0500
  Appealed by Steve, 10 Oct 1997 11:48:11 +1000 (EST)
  Assigned to Steve, Andre and elJefe as Justices, timestamp lost
  Steve finds the Judgement incorrect, and calls for reversal,
   11 Oct 1997 17:50:20 +1000 (EST)
  elJefe finds the Judgement incorrect, and calls for reversal,
   11 Oct 1997 10:49:16 +0000
  Andre finds the Judgement correct, 15 Oct 1997 21:16:12 +0200 (MET DST)
  Assigned to Vir, 15 Oct 1997 22:25:14 +0200 (MET DST)
  Judged TRUE by Vir, 22 Oct 1997 01:13:26 -0500
  Appealed by General Chaos, 22 Oct 1997 03:25:32 -0500
  Appealed by Steve, 22 Oct 1997 20:23:17 +1000 (EST)
  Assigned to Steve, Andre and elJefe as Justices, 22 Oct 1997 21:49:10
    +0200 (MET DST)
  Steve overturns and calls for reversal, 23 Oct 1997 12:00:02 +1000
  elJefe overturns and calls for reversal, 23 Oct 1997 19:03:47 +0100
  Andre defaults
  Assigned to Oerjan as Justice, 5 Nov 1997 22:30:20 +0100
  Oerjan overturns and calls for dismissal, 11 Nov 1997 21:35:58 +0100
  Final judgement: FALSE

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(Caller's) Arguments:

You would prefer that I ignore the obvious and direct meaning as being a
Transfer Order for 4 VTs in favor of the less obvious, indirect meaning as being
2 Transfer Orders for 2 VTs each? Please. COE denied.  Further, I transfer one
Kudo from Morendil for making such a baseless COE, to Harlequin, for being the
unfortunate victim of circumstance.

For one thing, that is precisely what I expect you to do - the Courts have been
working overtime to establish that implicit specifications in the wording of
Orders were to be given due consideration, and Harlequin's request for a
transfer is worded so that it was well within your authority, given this
judicial basis, to interpret it as two successful distinct TOs. Note that
Harlequin's request did not purport to be one TO for 4 VTs, but merely requested
that you note a Transfer or Transfers for a total of 4 VTs; given that the POs
this aimed to satisfy were explicitly listed, your contention that the 'obvious
and direct' intent was as a TO for an amount of 4 VTs simply makes no sense.

For another thing, "unfortunate victim of circumstance", together with your
statement that "The Bank gratefully appreciates your donation", strikes me as
very cynical.

I'll let the Agoran community take appropriate steps, if they so wish, to
compensate for the injurious Kudo transfer above; however, your behaviour as an
Officer should be subject to formal scrutiny and I therefore submit the
following CFJ :

=== General Chaos committed the Crime of Wrongful COE denial. 
=== 

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Decision & Reasoning Judge:

This Judge finds that, in stating that Harlequin's message "I transfer 4 VTs to
the Bank, to satisfy VT POs 1040 and 1041" failed to satisfy payment orders
VT1040 and VT1041, and then denying a COE asserting the opposite, General Chaos
committed the Crime of Wrongful COE denial.

As the caller of the CFJ claims, it is legitimate to interpret statements such
as Harlequin's generously, to wit that the transfer made be considered two
separate Transfer Orders, one for each of the two Payment Orders he was required
to satisfy.

This is in line with recent judicial (and appelate) decisions which allow
Transfer and Payment Orders to be made implicitly, and represents a welcome
shift towards a less pedantic style of play.

Michael.

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Decision & Reasoning Speaker:

I hereby reverse Michael's Judgement and find that the Statement is FALSE.

Although I completely agree with Michael's reasoning concerning how Harlequin's
message should have been interpreted, the fact is that Michael's Judgement was
made without reference to the possibility that Harlequin's attempts to transfer
VTs might have failed to satisfy any Payment Orders simply because Harlequin,
like every other Player, had no VTs at the time, a consequence of the
destruction of Voting Tokens by P3533.

I am not aware of any other occasion on which General Chaos has wrongfully
denied a COE, so I conclude that the Statement, despite its generality, is
FALSE.

Speaker Steve 

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Decision & Reasoning Justiciar:

FALSE (overturning the original Judgement) 

General Chaos is being too picky here, but the question is, should the COE have
been admitted?  Morendil's claim essentially says that Harlequin's Transfer
Orders of 20 September did satisfy the indicated Payment Orders, when the
General said they did not.

According to Rule 1732, a PO can only be satisfied when the appropriate TO is
successfully executed and the amount named is correct.  According to Rule 1598,
this could only happen if Harlequin had enough VTs.  As CFJ 933 has established,
on 20 September nobody had any VTs.  Thus the TOs could not have satisfied the
POs, as claimed (though for reasons other than the ones given).

In my reading of Rule 1431, the essence of the response to a COE is the denial
or acceptance (and in the latter case, posting of the corrected portion of the
report).  Rule 1431 does _not_ require the respondent to post reasons and
arguments.

Therefore, denying a claim for the wrong reason does not constitute Wrongful COE
Denial, if the claim should have been denied for other reasons.  This is mostly
a good thing; for an Officer it should be enough to get the decision right,
without having to make sure the reasons are perfect too.

Thus I vote to overturn the judgement, and rule that the CFJ should be judged
FALSE.

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Decision & Reasoning CotC: 

In the case of CFJ 1047 I UPHOLD the Judgement of TRUE. 

It has been argued by some, notably General Chaos, that the COE that Morendil
made was rightfully denied, as Harlequin did not actually transfer 4 VTs to the
Bank, so e did also not actually satisfy the Payment Orders. However, what does
the post in question of General Chaos actually say? General Chaos writes:

  Transferring 4 VTs to the Bank fails to satisfy either of VT1040 or 
  VT1041; both POs are for the amount of 2 VTs. 

The Bank gratefully appreciates your donation, however. 

Thus, in my opinion, General Chaos does not only claim that the POs are not
satisfied, but he also claims that transferring 4 VTs to the Bank would not
satisfy them. Which, as the Judge has, in my opinion rightly, decided, is not
the case. Thus the message was in fact misrepenting the Gamestate in that it
misrepresented the effect transferring 4 VTs to the Bank would have been able to
have, had it actually taken place.

By the way, have the other Justices really checked all of General Chaos's other
denied COE's to check whether he did not happen to commit the Crime on some
other time...? If not they would have done better to dismiss the CFJ than to
have changed the Judgement to FALSE.

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Decision & Reasoning second Judge: 

After reviewing all of the evidence, one point sticks out that simply cannot be
ignored.  Justice Andre argued that General Chaos claimed that transferring 4
VTs to the Bank fails to satisfy either of VT1040 or VT1041, both POs being for
the amount of 2VTs each.  This statement misrepresents the actual game state.
By denying the COE which alleged as such, General Chaos committed the Crime of
Wrongful COE Denial, a class 1 crime which bears a penalty of 1 Blot.

I hereby find this CFJ to be TRUE. 

Since this CFJ was reassigned, Michael's original Injunction had no effect. 

I hereby issue an Injunction requiring the Clerk of the Courts to execute
whatever Payment Orders are necessary to penalize General Chaos for this Crime.

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Decision & Reasoning Speaker, second Appeal: 

I had hoped to delay my Judgement of this Appeal until after the passage of my
proposed amendment to R1693, which would prevent a third, and very tedious,
re-assignment of this CFJ in the event of another split decision. But the VP for
P3573 won't conclude until the early morning of Fri, 31 Oct, Melbourne time, and
CotC Andre's prompt distribution of the Appeal means that my Judgement is due
before then. Ah, the privileges of Office. Since there is no point delaying, I
may as well be prompt.

Predictably, I overturn Judge Vir's decision and find the Statement FALSE.

What neither Judge Vir, nor Justice Andre in his first decision as Appeal
Justice (whom Vir followed in making his Judgement), have considered, which
properly they ought to do, is that it's clear from R1431 that an Officer's
reasons for denying a COE are irrelevant in determining whether eir decision to
deny a COE was correct. As Justice elJefe points out in his first Appeal
Judgement, this is as it should be.

Harlequin's original message stated: "I transfer 4 VTs to the Bank, to satisfy
VT POs 1040 and 1041". General Chaos denied that this message constituted
Transfer Orders satisfying the POs mentioned. In this he was completely correct.
Harlequin did not have 4 VTs at the time he sent the message, and so no message
of his sent at that time could have satisfied those POs. That is all we need to
know in order to determine that General Chaos was correct to deny the COE.

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Decision & Reasoning Justiciar, second Appeal: 

I vote to overturn and find the Statement FALSE.  My reasons are the same as I
offered in a previous decision.

Justice Andre made much of the fact that General Chaos had interpreted the TO in
question as a single one for 4 TVs as opposed to 2 TOs for 2 VTs each.  I cannot
find any reason why the latter interpretation is unambiguously specified by the
message, since neither one was a performable Transfer Order at the time.
Further, I interpret Morendil's COE as referring to the statement that the PO
was not satisfied.

The Statement in question does not say that Gen. Chaos committed an error in
presenting the game state.  It refers specifically to COE's, and while the
General may have made an error in interpreting and reporting, e did not err in
denying the COE. Nor is any other evidence in sight that e has committed
wrongful COE denial in the past.

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Decision & Reasoning of pro-CotC Oerjan, second Appeal: 

I overturn Vir's decision. As has already been clarified, the denial in the
specific case intended by the Caller was correct and the fact that the reason
for denial was wrong is not important.

However, unlike the other Justices I do not find that I can simply declare that
Scott has never committed this Crime.

Instead, I will dissent and rule that the CFJ should be Dismissed because it
would require unreasonable effort to collect sufficient evidence to decide the
full statement, especially when the very broad Statement seems to have been an
error by the Caller, who by his arguments apparently just wanted a particular
COE and its denial to be considered.

Thus, I judge to overturn the Judgement and Dismiss the CFJ. 

Greetings, 
Ørjan.

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Evidence (added by CotC):

piece 1: message of General Chaos to agora-business, dated 28 September piece 2:
message of Morendil to agora-business, dated 28 September

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Evidence 1: 

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"Chaos" == Chaos Harlequin harlequi-@tmbg.org writes: 

Chaos I transfer 4 VTs to the Bank, to satisfy VT POs 1040 and 1041. 

Transferring 4 VTs to the Bank fails to satisfy either of VT1040 or VT1041; both POs are for the amount of 2 VTs.

The Bank gratefully appreciates your donation, however. 

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Evidence 2: 

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Chaos I transfer 4 VTs to the Bank, to satisfy VT POs 1040 and 1041. 

Transferring 4 VTs to the Bank fails to satisfy either of VT1040 or 
VT1041; both POs are for the amount of 2 VTs. 

The Bank gratefully appreciates your donation, however. 

This strikes me as extremely ridiculous - insofar as the above can reasonably be interpreted as two TOs of 2 VTs each, satisfying one of the named POs each, in the spirit of the Appeals Court's decision on CFJ 940, I fail to see why there should be any difficulty in accepting that these TOs satisfy the named POs.

I quote from the Speaker's decision in that matter : 

   All that need be required is that the message be clearly identifiable
   as conveying a Payment Order, and that all of the elements of the
   Payment Order thus conveyed be determinable with reasonable
   certainty, either from being explicitly stated within that message,
   or reasonably deducible from the context in which that message was
   sent.

I see no reason why any of the above should not apply equally well to Transfer Orders. Please note that this is a COE.

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