alt Hacker NewsThat’s not true in general. Plenty of jurisdictions do not allow you to use contradictory arguments in hopes that one is persuasive.
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gruez • today at 1:23 PM
In the context of this story (ie. US), it's specifically allowed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_pleading#Civil_law
That sounds bad to me!
The TOS argument was so awful it deserves some kind of bonus loss, but let's put that aside for now.
Let's say I paint a fence, and my neighbor complains I ruined a particular segment that shouldn't have been painted. Why can't I argue that this segment was on my property and that my neighbor gave permission to use that paint on all segments on their property?
Let's say there's a 15% chance the survey was wrong about the fence location, and a 15% chance the court disagrees with how I'm interpreting the agreement. If I can use both arguments I have a 2% chance of losing, which seems fair to me. Both arguments are reasonable, so why should I have to risk it on only one?