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Motion To Delay Sanctions Against Prenda Lawyers Denied
rudy_wayne writes with news that the Prenda lawyers recently sanctioned by a federal judge are starting to face consequences. From the article: "On Friday, Paul Hansmeier, a Minnesota attorney who has been pointed to as one of the masterminds of the Prenda copyright-trolling scheme, filed an emergency motion to stay the $81,000 sanctions order while he and his colleagues could mount an appeal. Today the appeals court flatly denied his motion. Two appellate judges signed this order, and it gives Hansmeier the option to make a plea for delay with the district court judge. That would be U.S. District Judge Otis Wright, the judge who sanctioned Hansmeier in the first place. Hansmeier is also getting kicked off a case he was working on that was totally unrelated to Prenda's scheme of making copyright accusations over alleged pornography downloads. On Friday, the 9th Circuit Commissioner ordered Hansmeier, in no uncertain terms, to withdraw from a case involving Groupon since he has been referred to the Minnesota State Bar for investigation. The commissioner has delayed Hansmeier's admission to the 9th Circuit because of Wright's order, which refers to Wright's finding of 'moral turpitude.'"
I need a bigger monitor. I had a hard time reading all that with the massive erection the summary gave me. Seriously, this is fucking awesome. We're talking, distilled, 180 proof justice-porn here.
If you've been following the coverage on Popehat or FightCopyrightTrolls, you'll know that the Groupon class-action case is another one of Hansmeier's schemes to make money. He has a few cases where someone in his family files as an objector in a class-action case at the 11th hour (meaning that they are going to hold the case up and not let it settle, unless they get a nice payout of course), and then Hansmeier himself acts as the attorney for the objector. There are theories that he simply files the objections himself under a family member's name, and then proceeds to represent them. The objector in the Groupon case is Padraigin Browne, Hansmeier's wife (and a patent attorney). He's also represented his father, another attorney, in other class-action cases. I like how the judge ordered Hansmeier to provide proof to the court that he notified his client (wife) that he wasn't eligible to represent her.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Huh? I didn't read the article (naturally!) but I didn't get anything like that out of our summary. Wright's finding of "moral turpitude" refers to his judgement of Hansmeier. Hansmeier is getting kicked off of a completely different case (about Groupon) because the comissioner of the court presiding over that case won't let a lawyer with "moral turpitude" bring the case into his court. The original Prenda case was about porn downloads, and that set the whole thing off.
The summary didn't do a good job of explaining the appellate court order in this case. The judges were essentially saying that the issue was not ripe for consideration at their level, because Hansmeier needs to make the request in district court and have it denied there first. He can appeal the district court's refusal to issue a stay, but only after that decision is actually made.