“Rough Justice” – The Case of “Shore vs. Motorola” in an American Court

The following is an excerpt from a forthcoming entry in Wikipedia (the Free Encyclopedia):

“In 1994, Haim Shore sued Motorola, in an American court, for failing to publish the much publicized “Six Sigma Encyclopedia of Statistical Tools”, to which he volunteered eight modules that were reviewed by Motorola University (Six-Sigma Research Institute) and accepted for publication. Modules contributed by about two hundred other authors, mostly contributing each a single module or two, were also not published. Though Shore lost the case (Shore vs. Motorola), the verdict triggered an intensive debate within academia that resulted in several publications, where the term “Rough Justice” reigned supreme.”^[1]

Relating to this case^[2], Stewart Macaulay, law Professor Emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Law School (spouse of the late attorney Jacqueline Macaulay (1932-2000), who had led the litigation against Motorola), writes (footnote 5, p. 54):

“The price of the position I take in this article is that I have to accept that sometimes judges will use their discretion to reach results that I think are outrageous. Shore vs. Motorola was for me an unhappy example”.

References

[1] Linzer, Peter (2001). Rough Justice: A Theory of Restitution and Reliance, Contracts and Torts. Section IV: Haim Shore’s Case Against Motorola. With Commentary by Caroline N. Brown. Wisconsin Law Review (Published by the University of Wisconsin Law School), 3:695-794.

[2] Macaulay, Stewart (2003). The real and the paper deal: Empirical pictures of relationships, complexity and the urge for transparent simple rules (pp. 51-102). An article in (book): Implicit Dimensions of Contract: Discrete, Relational, and Network Contracts. International Studies in the Theory of Private Law. Editors: David Campbell, Hugh Collins, John Wightman. Bloomsbury Publishing. ISBN 1847312179, 9781847312174.

Comment: First item in references list is accesible below:

Peter Linzer_Shore vs. Motorola_Rough Justice_2001