Something called "FairPoint Creditor's Trust" is suing Verizon to recover the purchase price Fairpoint paid Verizon for the privilege of going broke. For those of you that tuned in late, some years ago Verizon decided that operating telephone lines in rural New England was a money loser. Few paying customers, spread over a wide area means lots of wire to maintain and few bill payers to fund the thing. So Verizon found a bigger sucker. Small backwoods phone company from down south somewhere , name of Fairpoint, thought they could make money running land line phone service in New England. Verizon wasn't making any money off a fully paid for physical plant. Fairpoint was going to borrow a zillion dollars at 12 percent, give the money to Verizon, and then make enough money to operate the system and pay off the debt. Right.
Not only did Fairpoint fall for this scam, the public utility commissions of all the affected state bought into the scheme. And some bankers somewhere (Wall Street?) were dumb enough to loan out the money.
Things happened as any idiot could have predicted. Fairpoint couldn't make money, couldn't service the debt, and declared bankruptcy a few years ago. I haven't been following this closely, but I hope all the idiots who participated in this stupidity lost a lot of money.
Anyhow, the suckers, after getting thoroughly plucked, hired some lawyers to try a get some money back from Verizon. Let's hope it doesn't work. Far as I am concerned anyone who got mixed up in the Fairpoint scheme was too stupid to be allowed outdoors without a keeper.
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