In Confessions of a Trekkie I reported on a legal opinion in a copyright troll case that was incredible on many levels, including the stellar references to Star Trek. The opinion dated May 6, 2013, Ingenuity 13 LLC v. John Doe by U.S. District Court Judge Otis D. Wright, II begins with a quote from the second Star Trek Movie, The Wrath of Khan (1982), The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. The opinion ended with the most serious sanctions order I have ever seen. The Wrath of Khan sanctions order included referral to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for criminal investigation, to the IRS for tax investigation, and the state Bar associations for ethics investigations, and an award of fees and costs in the amount of $81,319.72. Payment was to be made within 14 days, which was May 20, 2013.
To no one’s surprise the payment was not made on May 20, 2013, instead, plaintiff’s engaged in standard evasive maneuvers. They appealed the Sanctions order to the Ninth Circuit, but they did not post a bond to secure the ordered payment as required under appellate procedure. Instead they asked the appeals court to stay the payment order. Again, that is not correct procedure and the Ninth Circuit immediately denied the request for stay, pointing out the obvious that a request for stay like this must first be filed with the lower court. This is described in great detail, along with the original court filings, and many interesting background facts in several articles written by Mike Masnick. See Prenda’s Paul Hansmeier Asks Appeals Court To Delay Sanctions; Appeals Court Says ‘No, Try Again’; Prenda Gets Some Tiny Bit Of Good News, As It May Get Out Of Two Critical Cases.
After the Ninth Circuit denied the so-called emergency motion by plaintiff’s counsel to stay, they finally followed proper procedures and filed a motion for stay from Judge Wright. This once again provoked the Wrath of Khan. The standard evasive maneuvers of plaintiff’s counsel did not succeed. Photon Torpedoes were again fired and the sanctions were intensified with another order (this time not including Star Trek references, but interesting none-the-less). Judge Wright denies the application for stay and goes on to add an additional $1,000 per day penalty for not timely complying with his first order:
Further, Steele, Hansmeier, Duffy, Gibbs, AF Holdings, Ingenuity 13, and Prenda are hereby ORDERED TO SHOW CAUSE why they have contravened the Court’s order to pay the attorney’s-fee award. The Court hereby imposes a penalty of $1,000 per day, per person or entity,1 until this attorney’s-fee award is paid or a bond for the same amount is posted. This penalty shall be paid to the Clerk of Court on the same day the attorney’s-fee award is paid or the bond is posted. This penalty must be paid unless it is evident that the award was paid or the bond was posted on or before May 20, 2013. Failure to comply will result in additional sanctions.
For a copy of the entire order and additional background see: Bad Day For Prenda Continues: Judge Rejects Stay, Adds $1k Per Day For Each Day They Don’t Pay Up.
It looks like the shields of the enterprise of Steele, Hansmeier, Duffy, Gibbs, AF Holdings, Ingenuity 13, and Prenda, are down to 2%, maybe less. It is only a matter of minutes now before their ship is destroyed. I suspect they have initiated the auto-destruct sequence. If I were defense counsel I’d be on the lookout for escape pods. Too bad plaintiff’s counsel was not better acquainted with Star Trek, this judge, or the Wrath of Khan. They would have known that Khan Noonian Singh was a super-human, and his anger was intense and long-lasting. They would not even have attempted the kind of feeble last-minute appeal efforts we see now.
