I think Bob might be considered to be suffering as an impatient defendant. He appears to have alot of probative evidence to disprove the plaintiff's claims and can hardly wait for the trial to begin to prove his innocence. A major give away in this whole MESS is the lack of facts given to dispute Bob's and others claims against 3ABN. How about not attacking Bob but just deal with the facts of the case and try to come to a soution. Remember the old Dragent show when Jack Webb tells the woman JUST THE FACTS MAM, goes along way in my opinion to explain the status of this case. Wouldn't it be nice for the parties to discuss the facts, eliminate the personal attacks, and negotiate and end this MESS.
Ah, therein lies the challenge: How are we to determine what is actually probative evidence when much of what Bob has presented is couched in his own opinion of what the evidence actually means. What he believes the evidence shows is not necessarily the way the courts or others will see it. Look at Bob's "smokescreen" claim in rebuttal to Gregory's OP.
Bob: "Then you have Danny's own statements that indicate that he was going to use the ASI process as a smokescreen to make everything else go away."
Now read the email dialogue with Danny that he is basing his claim on. Did Danny really say what Bob claims? Are those emails probative to Bob's claim?
Answers.com defines "probative" as:
adj.
Furnishing evidence or proof.
Serving to test, try, or prove.
Wikipedia describes probative:Probative is a term used in law to signify "tending to prove."[1] Probative evidence "seeks the truth". Generally in law, evidence that is not probative (prejudicial evidence), or doesn't prove anything, is inadmissible and may be stricken from the record "if objected to by opposing counsel."[1] A balancing test may come in to the picture if the value of the evidence needs to be weighed versus its prejudicial nature.
So, how does one get to the "facts of the case" in order to be able to deal with them and try to come up with a solution?
You state: "He appears to have alot of probative evidence..." It would be most helpful if you would list some of Bob's facts that you feel rise to the standard of probative.
Let both parties start agreeing on the smaller issues i.e. that it was bad judgement to lease a plane for so much money. . It appears that bad judgment is to blame for many issues in this case not that a certain person intentionally set out see a end result. But then again I have not heard or seen the facts from one side in this litigation.
Now Bob has been accussed of using NLP. One of the best ways to confuse a issue is to accuse another of what you are doing. Could it be that Anyman is using NLP and accusing Bob of it thus further confusing the discussion?
In your proposal to settle this mess by having both parties start agreeing on the "smaller issues" an interesting shift has occurred. I notice that we have left "probative evidence" and the call for "JUST THE FACTS MAM" behind and you are advising that the parties start agreeing on opinions instead. How likely is that to happen? What Bob and Gailon might view as issues of bad judgment, the other parties may see as perfectly reasonable.
Best to stick to the facts, IMO, if they can ever be clearly presented.