Surprise: Judge Recuses Himself From Elon Musk’s GARM SLAPP Suit
from the did-not-see-that-coming dept
Elon Musk’s legal team probably thought they had the perfect strategy: file a SLAPP suit in a court with a judge known for partisan rulings, including rulings benefiting Elon himself in the past. But they didn’t count on one thing – the judge recusing himself.
Last week, Elon sued GARM and the others, claiming that it was an antitrust violation for them to organize a boycott against putting ads on Twitter. There was no evidence presented of any such boycott. Instead, there was evidence that GARM had recommended that advertisers be careful about how it might look if their brand ads appeared next to awful content.
However, we had worried that Elon filed it in the Wichita Falls division of the Northern District of Texas federal courts, knowing it was guaranteed to be assigned to Judge Reed O’Connor. O’Connor is known as a “go-to judge” for all sorts of partisan pro-GOP nonsense. And, Elon already has a case in front of him with his SLAPP suit against Media Matters.
In that case, O’Connor refused to toss it out early (when it obviously should have been). Just recently, Media Matters had requested that ExTwitter have to file an amended statement of interested parties, to indicate that Tesla is an interested party, noting that Judge O’Connor appears to own a significant number of Tesla shares. ExTwitter has insisted that Tesla is unrelated to the case while Media Matters has responded by pointing out how ridiculous that is. Judge O’Connor has not yet ruled on that issue in that case.
However, this morning, he announced that he was recusing himself from this new case and told the clerk to reassign it to another judge.
It’s unclear why (and we may never know the official reason, though how he rules on the Media Matters request may give us some clue).
That said, GARM has already announced that it was shutting down. It’s also possible that the case still gets assigned to a different terrible judge in Texas. Or that the 5th Circuit does what it normally does on appeals and ignores basically all legal history.
But, for a brief moment, Judge O’Connor has done the right thing and recused himself from a case in which the media was already highlighting the very real appearance of bias.
Update: As a few people have pointed out, it appears that O’Connor owns some Unilever stock, and that’s one of the defendants in the case, which could explain things.
Filed Under: elon musk, garm, recusal, reed o'connor, slapp suits, texas
Companies: garm, twitter, wfa, world federation of advertisers, x
Comments on “Surprise: Judge Recuses Himself From Elon Musk’s GARM SLAPP Suit”
I guess that GARM has been dismantled so fast because no advertiser wanted to fund a lawsuit to save it, and since it seems they don’t had any contract with GARM, they are not mandatory to do spend a dime to save it.
But now if Twitter is serious about suing all advertisers of the WFA for antitrust, this could cost them much more than Twitter actual worth. And if you’re a judge that may have some kind of conflict of interest past, it may be the right case to arbitrate.
But I’m pretty sure it will be fine for Musk. Very fine. Maybe even very big fine.
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It’s more like GARM has no power and no contractual duties other than to its employees which can be just rehired under a different scheme/acronym.
There is no point in upholding its existence as a legal entity when that can result in unknown legal penalties/costs.
It’s like if someone sues me over the ugliness of my letterbox. I am not attached to it. It is convenient but there is no point in investing money in its defense when it is much easier to just functionally replace it.
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My lunch cost more than Twitter is worth at this point.
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So does mine, and I don’t even eat lunch!
Consider The Judge
Who is a partizan hack, and apparently arrived at his bench prepurchased with additional kudos to any conservative plaintive
He has both Tesla and Unilever stock. They are at odds in the case, so he would rather the case go away as either can cost him net worth
I offer that his net worth is what triggered his recusal, as he has GOP level of integrity. E.G. personal wealth is always first to be considered
This doesnt let the WFA off the hook
Even with GARM gone they are still getting sued. Likely they will win, but I dont think dismantling GARM gives them much if any advantage.
Why does Techdirt still call X extwitter?
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I know, right? Techdirt should be calling it Xitter. Pronounced, shitter.
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Became Elmo’s Digital Litterbox doesn’t have the same ring to it.
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‘X’ is traditionally used as a placeholder, either for a specific term to be filled in later or as a generic brand no one could confuse for a real brand or trademark.
That “X” is now, in fact, a brand makes writing about Xitter difficult, the brand is ambiguous and looks out of place. Most journalism outlets appear to have chosen reliable clarity as the style guide approach to resolve the ambiguous brand.
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Can’t wait for Elmo to sue all math book publishers for their indiscriminate use of the letter x which is clearly owned by Elmo. He may graciously license its use for a fair amount of money, or first born which ever is worth more.
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It’s shorter than “X (formerly Twitter)”. No one cares about “X”, and far more people know what Twitter is.
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When I visit it, the domain name is still twitter.com.
A nice throw-back to the good old days, when judges had integrity. Sadly, it’s day has passed, thanks mostly to the GQP and their cabal of turds in suits.
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It just accidentally looks like integrity.