Judges Berate Spammer For 'Incompetent' Litigation

An anonymous reader writes "Joseph Kish, attorney for alleged serial spamming firm e360, must have known he was in trouble when Judge Richard A. Posner interrupted him seconds into his opening statement to berate both Kish and his client. Kish was appearing before the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit to explain why his client was entitled to $27,000 from Spamhaus, a British anti-spam nonprofit. None of the judges on the appeals court panel seemed sympathetic to e360's argument, but Judge Posner did most of the talking. He spent fully two-thirds of Kish's 15-minute presentation demanding that Kish explain his client's methodology and lecturing him on its inadequacy. 'This is just totally irresponsible litigation,' he said. 'You can't just come into a court with a fly-by-night, nothing company and say "I've lost $130 million."'"

$27,000 is not that small

[cats-paw]

"The judges expressed surprise that a defendant would even bother to appeal a judgment as small as $27,000."

What exactly does that mean ? Litigation is so expensive that you should just pay up when somebody sues you
for thousands of dollars ? Is the court encouraging blackmail by lawsuit ??

Alas,

[Jawnn]

...Judge Posner is incorrect. One most certainly can "just come into a court with a fly-by-night, nothing company and say 'I've lost $130 million.'" That's the problem with the our legal system. Patent trolls do it all the time. One can bring suit for just about anything, against just about anyone. Happily, every once in a while a court will abandon protocol and call "bullshit" right up front. On that call, of course, His Honor is dead on. Hopefully, this frivolous action will cost the plaintiff and more importantly, his attorneys dearly.

Possibly career ending for this litigator

[Anonymous Coward]

For those keeping score at home, judge Posner is likely the best known and most highly regarded judge in America outside the Supreme Court. Getting publicly lambasted by Posner for incompetence does not bode well for any attorney's career.

This is the sign things are not going your way.

[www.sorehands.com]

I listened to the oral arguments with joy, The oral arguments reminded me of the ruling in e360 v. Comcast, where it started with, "Plaintiff e360Insight, LLC is a marketer. It refers to itself as an Internet marketing company. Some, perhaps even a majority of people in this country, would call it a spammer. "

But, what is interesting is the e360Insight, LLC, v. ChoicePoint Precision Marketing, LLC case. [spamsuite.com] He sued them for providing them e-mail addresses for Ferguson, Ferron , and myself. Linhardt claimed he "licensed" our e-mail addresses from Choicepoint. However, Linhardt swore under oath (claimed in the case of Ferguson) with that Ferguson, Ferron, and I signed up with their partner. I am thinking that might apply in any further proceedings, if there are any.

Re:Peers

[AlecC]

SCO was /at one time/ a legitimate company. But it sold its major asset, and the shell was taken over by patent trolls. Since a company is nothing but a piece of paper, unlike humans, they can be converted from one use to a totally different one. WPP, the world largest advertising agency, descends from "Wire and Plastic Packging", a company which manufactured supermarket trollies. Nokia was once a forest products company, then sold rubber boots. 3M started out mining.