Senior Judge Victor Musleh of the 5th Judicial Circuit in Lake County, Florida ascribes to the latter school. When his February 28th order in Wells Fargo v. Granger hit the ATL tips inbox, I thought it was a mild story. But this page-turner of an order raised the stakes with each paragraph….

The subject of Judge Musleh’s order is Mark Stopa of the Stopa Law Firm (and a Fantasy Sports guru). From the first page, Judge Musleh lets the reader know that there are “many” problems in this case, but singles out a straight-forward technical issue as though it’s the most troubling.

As a preliminary matter, this Court finds that Defendants’ Motion is in many respects misleading, insulting, and contains too many falsehoods to list. However, one aspect that is especially troubling to the Court is that Defense Counsel has signed his name as a member of The Florida Bar to a Motion that he purports to be verified by Defendant Jeffrey Granger. Defendant Granger has averred under penalty of perjury that the facts in the Motion are true and correct, and yet Defendant Granger Was not present for the events in question, either in person or via telephone, and thus has no personal knowledge of What took place. It is therefore impossible for Defendant Granger to swear to the veracity of the Motion and has subjected himself, through counsel’s misguided need to verify his Motion, to a charge of perjury at most and sanctions detrimental to his ease for misleading this Court, at the very least.

Signing a document that purports to be verified when it’s not is a transgression, but nothing too exciting. I almost stopped reading here. But that would have been a mistake.

Defense counsel Stopa apparently believes that this Court is able to conjure a written Order of denial on rulings out of thin air as he asked for a written Order on his denied Motions in order to pursue appellate relief and now complains that the Court did not accommodate him.

Feel the snark dripping off the page. But still this is pretty standard slap-fighting so far. But then the order points out that Stopa got belligerent in a hearing. And here’s the follow-up:

Mr. Stopa then launched into an argument regarding the courtroom facilities and the fact that he was denied entrance to the court proceedings prior to being called for the instant case. Prior to calling the case, the undersigned judge and court personnel could hear loud banging on the door outside the conference room where the proceedings were being held and a loud voice demanding entry.

This is a full-on freak out. In a courthouse. Banging on doors and petulantly complaining that the facilities are not up to his standards. Judges can begin to feel a little too high and mighty, but they are entitled to expect that the lawyers won’t bang on the doors of the courtroom and kvetch about the decor.

Even more egregious than the falsehoods perpetuated in his Motion regarding the court proceedings are Mr. Stopa’s allegations that the undersigned “physically assaulted” him.

Now, most people would have led with that part of the story, but Judge Musleh is a goddamned master storyteller.

These are serious allegations whose purpose is unknown other than to discredit the reputation of a member of the judiciary, whose rulings he did not appreciate. Unlike his allegations, Mr. Stopa did not remain in his chair and speak in a normal tone of voice. He rose from his seat and addressed the court in a loud, arrogant, and extremely uncivil tone. He had to be warned by the court bailiff to calm down. As court had been in session for approximately four hours with only a minute break, the undersigned did rise, walk around the conference table in Mr. Stopa’s direction in order to stretch his legs, and intended to leave the room. But due to Mr. Stopa’s continuing diatribe, the undersigned circled the table and returned to his seat. While the undersigned may have pointed a finger in Mr. Stopa’s direction from several feet away while attempting to answer Mr. Stopa’s outbursts, in no way did the Court physically assault Mr. Stopa or prevent him from leaving the room. The allegations of physical assault and intimidation are preposterous and untrue.

The real kicker to this whole order is that Judge Musleh had already recused himself from the case. But Stopa refused to wait to receive notice of the Judge’s recusal and filed his motion to disqualify in the interim, prompting Judge Musleh to fire off this order that concludes by dismissing Stopa’s motion as moot.

And that’s really the most satisfying moment. When you realize the Judge went to all this trouble, not because he had to, but because he really thought the lawyer deserved it.

Order Responding To Renewed Verified Motion To Disqualify [Wells Fargo v. Granger, 5th Judicial Circuit, Florida]

• Not Even Robots Want To Go To Jury Duty!
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Ordinarily, a Plaintiff suing a John Doe Defendant would seek narrow discovery ex parte in order to identify the Doe Defendant for purposes of filing a motion to amend the Complaint to name the Doe, followed by service of the Complaint. The Plaintiffs in these cases evidence no interest in such a pursuit. They have not proposed a discovery plan aimed at identifying the infringers they have sued. Rather, the Plaintiffs request that the Court order disclosure of the third-party subscribers' names so that the Plaintiffs might settle or dismiss their cases on an informal basis. The discovery they seek cannot provide the Plaintiffs with sufficient information to identify the Doe Defendants. Nor have the Plaintiffs requested leave in their submissions to take depositions, either orally or upon written questions – the only discovery mechanism available to Plaintiff under the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure when seeking information from third parties, as is the case here....

... the omission of any written request for depositions in the Plaintiffs' renewed motions for discovery speaks volumes about the Plaintiffs' lack of interest in actually litigating these cases. That the Plaintiffs' counsel now assert a willingness to take depositions if that is the only option ... only confirms that the Plaintiffs' interest in litigating the cases, or in following the governing law, arises only in response to the Court's express command.

Not only have Plaintiffs failed to articulate a discovery plan that would lead to identifying the infringers they have sued, but the Plaintiffs cannot even articulate the specific information they need or require in order to identify the infringers (or, to determine that such identification is not reasonably possible).

With respect to John Doe No. 22..., the Plaintiff Discount Video has stated an intent to dismiss Doe No. 22 from the pending action and file a new, separate individual complaint against this Doe, even though it does not know the identity of the infringer. Such an action smacks of an bad faith effort to harass the third-party subscriber by causing him or her to expend further legal fees in a brand new action, which would merely repeat all that has occurred to date. The Federal Rules specifically address this situation and authorize an award of fees and costs.... The course of action the Plaintiff has stated it intends to pursue also suggests an improper effort to engage in judge shopping and evidences a disregard for the Court's limited public resources.

Finally, the Plaintiffs have repeatedly said one thing and done another. The Plaintiffs plainly sued only the infringers in these actions. Yet the Plaintiffs proposed and served notices upon the subscribers informing them they had been sued. The Plaintiffs' counsel stated to the Court that in his opinion, subscribers are "always going to . . . be secondarily liable "..., but he also stated that he would not assert secondary liability claims against subscribers as such claims would not pass muster under Rule 11.3

Now, the Plaintiffs have filed lawsuits against subscribers asserting secondary liability on the theory that, upon information and belief, discovery will reveal the subscribers to have known of the infringement via their account, or, that discovery will show the subscribers to be the parent of an unemancipated minor between the ages of 7 and 18.... While those cases are not before the undersigned (though some are before the district judges assigned to the captioned cases), the Court may permissibly consider them in assessing the reliability and veracity of counsel's statements. The Plaintiffs' counsel has also repeatedly said to the undersigned, and to other judicial officers of this Court, that he intends to litigate the claims he has brought. Yet to date, counsel has sued well in excess of one thousand Doe Defendants in this District, and as far as the Court is aware, he has never served a Complaint upon a single individual defendant.

I'm still struggling to see how this is different from other forms of social interaction between lawyers and judges. Social interaction between judges and lawyers happens all the time and is not a basis for disqualification. I think there may be a bit of Facebook exceptionalism going on here.

Is it time to start murdering the corrupt yet?

"Dear Sam, It has not escaped my attention, or that of my colleagues or, I am told, nationally known blog sites that you have issued several 'cute' orders in the past few weeks. The order attached below is the most recent. Frankly, this kind of rhetoric is not funny. In fact, it is so caustic, demeaning, and gratuitous that it casts more disrespect on the judiciary than on the now-besmirched reputation of the counsel. It suggests either that the judge is simply indulging himself at the expense of counsel or that he is fighting with counsel in what, as Judge Gee used to say, is surely not a fair contest. It suggests bias against counsel. No doubt, none of us has been consistently above reproach in our professional communications with counsel. We are all prone to human error. But no judge who writes an order should allow such rhetoric to overcome common sense. Ultimately, this kind of excess, as I noted, reflects badly on all of us. I urge you to think before you write. Sincerely, Edith Jones."

Greetings and Salutations!

You are invited to a kindergarten party on THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 2011, at 10:00 a.m. in Courtroom 2 of the United States Courthouse, 200 W. Eighth Street, Austin, Texas.

The party will feature many exciting and informative lessons, including:

• How to telephone and communicate with a lawyer
• How to enter into reasonable agreements about deposition dates
• How to limit depositions to reasonable subject matter
• Why it is neither cute nor clever to attempt to quash a subpoena for technical failures of service when notice is reasonably given; and
• An advanced seminar on not wasting the time of a busy federal judge and his staff because you are unable to practice law at the level of a first year law student.

Invitation to this exclusive event is not RSVP. Please remember to bring a sack lunch! The United States Marshals have beds available if necessary, so you may wish to bring a toothbrush in case the party runs late.

Has Judge Sparks gone too far? Is he being too hard on lawyers for, well, doing what lawyers do?

And is Judge Sparks’s snark excessive? Don’t get us wrong; it’s amusing to compare lawyers to kindergarteners — which Judge Sparks has been doing since 2004 (subscription). But is Judge Sparks trying too hard to entertain? These are judicial orders, not blog posts (where snark and entertainment are welcome).

On the other hand, and in defense of Judge Sparks, judicial orders and opinions can be pretty dry and boring. Can you fault a judge for trying to make them more engaging?

Does anyone see a conflict of interest when the world’s richest patent owners fly judges from all over the world to a 3-day conference in Brussels?  Here's the lede:

Bringing nearly 100 judges from more than 30 countries to Europe.  Sharing experiences among patent-experienced judges from many countries and between the patent bench and bar.

This gathering won't hear from patent skeptics.  The Platinum sponsors are Akin Gump, Du Pont, ExxonMobil, Finnegan, P&G and Johnson & Johnson.  The program committee is unabashedly pro-IP.  No voice for the public domain; MSF, Oxfam, Jamie Love, Sean Flynn and other public interest voices aren't on the program

I'm fine with IP maximalists holding conferences; I'm worried when judges from around the planet are wined and dined while hearing only a pro-IP point of view.

Conference attendees will have an opportunity to share experiences with nearly one hundred judges from around the world. Beginning with a welcome reception on Monday, judges will attend sessions and social events with intellectual property law attorneys and other interested parties.

Latin American Online Piracy $142,944
Training for judges from Peru, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay on combating digital/online copyright piracy crimes.

Chin reviewed several pieces of evidence, including a bank surveillance video showing a robber who wore a yellow rain hat. A yellow rain hat was found in the garage of [Anthony] Bari's landlord.

Noting similarities between the hats, Chin at a hearing said he resorted to Google Inc's search engine for help. "We did a Google search," and "one can Google yellow rain hats and find lots of different yellow rain hats," he said.

In its decision, the appeals court said most federal evidence rules "do not apply with their full force" in proceedings to revoke supervised releases.

Using this "relaxed" standard, it endorsed Chin's effort to confirm his "common sense supposition" that more than one yellow rain hat is available for sale.

But it went further, saying improved broadband speeds and Internet search engines cut the cost of confirming intuitions.

The court said that 20 years ago. "a trial judge may have needed to travel to a local department store to survey the rain hats on offer.
"Today, however, a judge need only take a few moments to confirm his intuition by conducting a basic Internet search," it added. "As the cost of confirming one's intuition decreases, we would expect to see more judges doing just that."

Whether a judge may add lawyers who may appear before the judge as "friends" on a social networking site, and permit such lawyers to add the judge as their "friend."

ANSWER: No.

My question to the advisory committee is whether this means that it's now inappropriate for a judge to have lunch with a lawyer friend, or engage in email banter with lawyer friends? Is attending the same party now off limits? I assume these actions would still be viewed as appropriate, given that lawyers and judges interact socially (and publicly) all the time. What's so special about Facebook friendship?

What??? Putting aside the fact that the metatags were ignored by many of the search engines even at the relevant time (back in the late 1990s), this is a backwards way of assessing site visibility for the search term "Spoiled Brats." So what if the term Spoiled Brats wasn't in the metatags if the term was on the page?

"[W]hen plaintiffs dismissed their claims in June 2007, they apparently had no more material evidence to support their claims than they did when they first contacted defendant in February 2005.....Whatever plaintiffs' reasons for the manner in which they have prosecuted this case, it does not appear to be justified as a reasonable exploration of the boundaries of copyright law....."
-Hon. Donald C. Ashmanskas

"[N]either the parties' submissions nor the Court's own research has revealed any case holding the mere owner of an internet account contributorily or vicariously liable for the infringing activities of third persons.....In addition to the weakness of the secondary copyright infringement claims against Ms. Foster, there is a question of the plaintiffs' motivations in pursuing them..... [T]here is an appearance that the plaintiffs initiated the secondary infringement claims to press Ms. Foster into settlement after they had ceased to believe she was a direct or "primary" infringer."
-Hon. Lee R. West

"Plaintiff ... must present at least some facts to show the plausibility of their allegations of copyright infringement.... However, other than the bare conclusory statement that on "information and belief" Defendant has downloaded, distributed and/or made available for distribution to the public copyrighted works, Plaintiffs have presented no facts that would indicate that this allegation is anything more than speculation. The complaint is simply a boilerplate listing of the elements of copyright infringement without any facts pertaining specifically to the instant Defendant. The Court therefore finds that the complaint fails to sufficiently state a claim upon which relief can be granted...."
-Hon. Rudi M. Brewster