Benchslaps, Litigators, Pornography

Benchslap Of The Day: Your Client Is Winning Despite Your Best Efforts To The Contrary

You can see the judge's patience wearing thin as he is writing the words.

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We’ve all had cases that can only be described as a giant pain in the ass. Opposing counsel is a drag, the timelines keep getting messed up, and you get stuck with the worst co-workers.

It turns out federal judges also have their share of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad cases. Like Northern District of Georgia Judge William O’Kelley. From jump street this case sounds like a bummer — AF Holdings v. Patel is one of those Prenda Law-porn-copyright-blackmail cases. That’s where the plaintiff/shell corporation buys up worthless porn copyrights, then sues John Does via IP addresses when the porno is downloaded on a peer-to-peer network. Then the holding company would try to negotiate settlements when actual people were identified behind the IP addresses. Turns out, when facing a lawsuit over downloading porn, between litigation costs and sheer embarrassment, most people just settle. In fact, when someone actually shows up to defend the case, the plaintiff generally drops the suit with prejudice.

In this case the defendant, Rajesh Patel, decided to fight back and plaintiff backed off, as per their usual strategy. But that wasn’t good enough, and attorney’s fees were sought. Unfortunately, Judge O’Kelley was not impressed with the defense attorneys:

[D]efendant’s counsel created an ouroboros–generating attorney’s fees for attempts to recover attorney’s fees.

But Judge O’Kelley’s ire wasn’t reserved for just one side of this dispute, he’s got plenty of jabs to go around:

Unfortunately, the parties proved incapable of conducting efficient and effective litigation in federal court. The parties’ inability to resolve even the most routine issues in this litigation placed the court in a quandary.

Boom. I like how you can literally see Judge O’Kelley’s patience wearing thin as he is writing the words.

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He awards the defendant costs, but makes it clear defense counsel should not be celebrating this one (emphasis ours):

Finally, the court has no confidence in defendant’s counsel. Based on his filings and performance during the show cause hearing, the court believes that defendant’s counsel lacks the requisite capability to untangle a network of shell corporations or perform discovery on a national scale in a remotely efficient manner. The court seriously considered replacing defendant’s counsel to help it determine whether sanctionable activity occurred in this case and regrets its decision not to do so. That defendant was ultimately able to secure any sanctions against plaintiff is in spite of, not due to, counsel’s involvement in the case.

Someone buy Judge O’Kelley a drink. I think he needs it.

Read the full order (complete with additional burns for both sides of this case) on the next page.

Earlier: Former Prenda Lawyer Hit With A $50,000 Counterclaim In ADA Shakedown Lawsuit

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