Not appealing and his willingness to let the debt collect all that interest were the big red flags that it wasn't his money even before he spilled his guts to a chatbot. Everybody gambles more freely with somebody's else's chips. His indignant They never told me this could happen! Nobody told me I'd have to pay! It's cruel! reactions all smack of a guy left holding the bag.
I just want to know what SFWA told him to get him to sign that NDA that he thought was so much fun at the time. Sign all this and we'll get back to you? Sign all this and we'll see what we can do? Sign this real quick while we go to the store for cigarettes? There's no way they promised to pay for everything. He heard what he wanted to hear, just like he does when the cops "clear" him of self swatting and motorcycle besmirching.
The whole thing is very strange; even stranger, I actually believe Patrick here, at least to a certain extent... And even stranger yet, while fuck that FFWBT for filing that ridiculous lolsuit, I actually feel some empathy for him, because over the years it's become apparent he's been getting used over and over and over again by the people surrounding him: Cat Rambo / the SFWA, Brinton, and Jackie.
When discussing the lawsuit in interviews Patrick portrays himself as the tip of the spear -- the big, bad troll hunter. But has Patrick
ever not exaggerated himself and his achievements when talking about anything he's done? In reality, I don't think Patrick was involved much at all with the lawsuit apart from putting his name on it*; an angry Cat Rambo saw him as a conduit to lash out at trolls, and Brinton saw him as a way to collect billable hours.
Think about it: presumably, the SFWA didn't wire Patrick $100k to use for the lawsuit; they would've been sending money directly to the lawyers. Lawyers want to get paid, so I'm confident the SFWA and Brinton + Co. signed a payment agreement directly, with the limitations clearly laid out and stipulated (the SFWA wouldn't give them a blank check).
So when Patrick says he wasn't notified he could appeal:
I actually believe him. Why WOULD Brinton ask Patrick if he wants to appeal; he would've asked the SFWA, the ones cutting the checks, and the SFWA declined. The SFWA also probably took a closer look at the lawsuit at this point, saw how bungled it was and complained or even asked for a fee reduction, possibly contributing to Brinton's exit from the firm.
In a moral sense, I think the SFWA did Pat kinda dirty by not covering the SLAPP fees, but in a business and legal sense it was to be expected. Cat Rambo was gone at this point, Pat had signed an NDA with the SFWA so he couldn't make a stink on Twitter, and the SFWA's agreement with Brinton's firm was undoubtedly airtight and explicit about the extent of their financial obligations; of course they weren't going to return Patrick's calls, they weren't on the hook to pay the defendant's legal fees.
It seems like a safe bet that prior to the debt being domesticated, Patrick assumed the SFWA would pick up the SLAPP tab and therefore just went back to "no childing" on Twitter. As he has stated before in interviews, he really had no clue what he was getting into when he signed his name on that lawsuit.
*The one factor I can think of that points away from this is the refusal to remove John Doe #1; no lawyer wants to take a L, so it's quite possible that at some point Brinton floated the idea and Patrick turned it down. Then again, Brinton doesn't seem very smart (Stavros Esquire was a total joke), so it's also feasible that they just stuck with the original filing because Brinton didn't understand the issue. It's just as feasible that to the limited extent that Patrick was involved, it was to shoot themselves in the foot, which we all know Patrick is wont to do.