Juliana 150 v techsupport5767 2026 Civ 2
juliana_150 v techsupport5767 [2026] Civ 2
| Date of judgment | 12 March 2026 (Oral) 14 March 2026 (Full) |
| Judge | Judge Hmquestionable |
| Grounds | Legal Malpractice (see Keepbloxburgsafe v AerospaceEnjoyer [2025] Civ. 28) |
| Verdict |
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| Result | 225t costs for the Defense |
| Applicable persuasive precedent |
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JUDGMENT by Judge Hmquestionable
Introduction
[1] This case is brought under a Common Law Tort, Legal Malpractice. The elements of the tort are, according to the case that recognized this tort, Keepbloxburgsafe v AerospaceEnjoyer [2025] Civ. 28:
- (a) Breach of duty to exercise the care, skill, and diligence of a reasonably competent advocate;
- (b) Harm;
- (c) Through negligence, omission or misconduct in the course of representation.
[2] The facts of the case are as follows:
In June of 2025, Plaintiff Juliana was charged with Terrorist Conspiracy. The Defendant was the state-appointed defense attorney. At the time of the charge, the relevant Criminal Code provisions read as follows:
§1. A person engages in terrorist conspiracy if they commit terrorism against the individual as described in the Terrorist Connection Accounts Act, Article 1: Terrorism Against The Individual, is a member and supporter of a terrorist organization as described in the Terrorist Connection Accounts Act, Article 2: Terrorist Organizations, or meets the standards for committing terrorism or being a terrorist under any other law. §1.1. Where it is proved, on a balance of probabilities, that a person is a member of a terrorist organization under the Terrorist Connection Accounts Act, Article 2, it is presumed, until the contrary is proved, that the person is a supporter of said organization under the Terrorist Connection Accounts Act, Article 2.
[3] Plaintiff was charged with being in the terrorist organization TIDE.
[4] Plaintiff was convicted of Terrorist Conspiracy and sentenced to a permanent ban.
Claims
[4] Central to Plaintiff’s claim are these matters –
- (a) Defendant did not contest the Prosecution’s claim that TIDE was a terrorist organization; and,
- (b) Defendant instead advanced a strategy relating to the intent and knowledge of the Plaintiff, which are not relevant in determining guilt for the Terrorist Conspiracy charge.
[5] The Defense claims that advancing the strategy mentioned in [4](a) (the “alternative strategy”) would have been unsuccessful, and that the Defendant’s use of the strategy in [4](b) (the “chosen strategy”) was supported by the law.
Did the Defendant owe a duty to the Plaintiff?
[6] Defendant was Plaintiff’s representation in court and hence owed a duty to exercise reasonable care, skill, and diligence while representing Plaintiff.
Was there a breach of this duty?
[7] When determining the existence of a breach in this case, the court must make reference to what a “reasonably competent advocate” in the same situation may do.
[8] We shall first examine if a reasonably competent advocate would decide to use the chosen strategy. The way the criminal code is written creates a main element (whether the organization which the defendant is a member of, is a terrorist organization) and a presumed element (whether the defendant was supporting the organization). The Defense states that the Defendant did contest this element, through his argument on ignorance. The Plaintiff contends that the Defendant did not.
[9] In support of their claim, the Defense provided chatlogs of the Defendant and a person (A) who submitted an affidavit in the trial. Within the chatlog, the Defendant says that “[...] we only need to prove they ain’t in tide”. The Defendant then tried to obtain an affidavit stating that A had asked the Plaintiff to make certain statements in support of TIDE (seemingly to prove that the Plaintiff was not actually a member of TIDE, but simply roped in by A). The Defense contends that this shows that the Defendant was aware of the need to contest the element of membership.
[10] However, this is simply not relevant for the purposes of the Terrorist Connected Accounts Act. Membership, under the act, does not actually require the accused to be a member of the terrorist organization. Instead, being “frequently associated” with the organization is sufficient to prove membership. The Defendant seems to have realized this during the criminal trial as well, as they did not bring up any argument that the Plaintiff was not a member of TIDE during the criminal trial. Hence, the Defense’s argument in [9] is rejected.
[11] So, the alternative avenue to contest the main element is to contest whether TIDE is a terrorist organization in the first place. However, the Defendant did not do this as well.
[12] The only remaining thing to contest is, hence, the presumed element. The relevant legislation states:
§3. Supporters of a terrorist organization includes, but is not limited to being an operative (someone who executes organization policy, agendas or orders), knowingly committing crimes in support of the group, intentional intelligence gathering in support of the group, or voter fraud or harassment on behalf of the organization.
[13] The Defense would have to rebut the presumed element by showing that the defendant did not support the organization. Most of these examples of support require intent, except for “being an operative (someone who executes organization policy, agendas or orders).
[14] However, the Defense attempted to rebut the presumed element through demonstrating the Plaintiff’s lack of intent (through arguments that the Plaintiff was acting in Jest, or did not know about the previous actions of TIDE). This is simply not a valid strategy, because the element of support does not require intent for “being an operative”. The Defense did not attempt to advance any other strategy to show that the Plaintiff was not an operative.
[15] So, to conclude this section, the Defense did not contest the main element and attempted to rebut the presumed element in a manner which would not have been successful in any situation. No reasonably competent advocate would have crafted such a strategy which essentially does not contest any of the elements of the charge. I hence find that the duty of care owed to the Plaintiff was breached by the Defendant.
Was the breach done due to negligence, omission, or misconduct?
[16] This element of the tort does not seem to be very useful. The breach was very obviously due to omission, as the Defendant did not contest the elements of the charge.
Was there harm?
[17] The Plaintiff has been fined and permanently banned from SimDemocracy. However, it is not immediately obvious that this would not have happened but for the Defendant’s representation.
[18] This court finds it rather difficult for a defendant to disprove the presumed element. How exactly does someone prove that they did not support an organization, when it is presumed that they did? It does not seem like the Prosecution is required to present any specific instances of support which they intend to rely on for the trial either, so the amount of proof the defense in a case with this charge would need is very large.
[19] In this case however, the facts are different. The Prosecution had introduced a specific incident which they intended to rely on as proof that the defendant supported the organization, with evidence of the incident. The Plaintiff suggests that the Defense should have objected to the evidence but did not. The Plaintiff did not suggest any grounds on which the Defense could have objected to the evidence.
[20] The Court has taken judicial notice of the evidence document, as it forms part of a court proceeding. None of the evidence within the document immediately appears to be objectionable. Given that the Plaintiff did not suggest any ground on which an objection could be made, and given that the Court could not immediately determine any basis for an objection, it is not clear that objecting to the evidence would be successful.
[21] In their closing statements, the Plaintiff relies on the result of the criminal proceeding (a permanent ban and a fine) to demonstrate that harm occurred. However, there must be some causational link between the harm and the Defendant’s actions. For instance, an expert opinion that the Plaintiff could have been acquitted if the case was handled in a competent manner could be advanced to prove this causational link.
[22] The Court is unable to simply infer harm from the result of the case. Otherwise, the element of harm would be rendered useless, because there would always be harm whenever a plaintiff did not receive their desired result in court. Hence, I find that the Plaintiff has not proven that the Defendant’s actions caused harm, on a balance of probabilities.
Conclusion
[23] Given that the Plaintiff has not proven the case on a balance of probabilities, the Defendant is found not liable.
Costs
[24] It is unfortunate that the Defense did not make any proper submissions on costs, instead simply demanding the maximum possible costs because the attorney who worked on this case would “make about 500-1000 tau per case”.
[25] It is important to note that the attorney’s fees are not the only factor which the Court needs to consider when determining costs. Instead, the Court must take a holistic consideration of the case, taken into account factors such as whether there were frivolous motions or misconduct, as well as other factors which the court may find necessary.
[26] In NotCommunist366 v SDIOA [2025] Civ. 14, a reasonable rate for attorney’s fees was set at 225 tau per week. The Defense, upon further questioning by myself, informed the Court that they had spent “at least 3 hours” on the case. They did not provide any proof of this. However, I am satisfied that a period of 3 hours is a reasonable time to have spent on a case of this nature, and hence, costs shall be set at 225 tau to be paid from the Plaintiff to the Defendant within 48 hours of this judgment.