Lawyer Moot, Van Syckel's counsel, deferentially asked the Court to suggest where was the defect in the proof of damages. It would be "the wildest speculation and guesswork," the Court said, for the jury to attempt to compute the damages. "Then the Court is unable to suggest any particular defect in the proof?" The Court evaded the point of the counsel, and repeated in general terms that there was no testimony upon which a jury could assess damages. Those whom he was suing did not disprove that, by threats of making it impossible for him to get transportation, they had driven Van Syckel to abandon his own business, and make a contract with them by which they were to pay him $100,000 for his new process, if successful. The Court held the contract binding. They had not furnished the money and works to test the inventions as they had agreed to do; but he had nevertheless gone on and completed the invention, so that patents were granted for it by the government. He had tested the invention in other works, they failing him, and had proved it a success; they had thereupon purchased and destroyed these works; he was beggared, and nobody else under these circumstances could be induced to venture money on his invention. Upon these facts, judicially ascertained, the judge refused to let the jury compute the damages, and ordered them to find the damages "nominal," as another judge sentenced their associates in Buffalo to "nominal" punishment. "There are many things known to the law," said Parnell to the president of the Special Commission trying the Irish members of Parliament, "which are strange to a non-legal mind."