Prenda
Judge Darrah grants defendants’ motion for sanctions in Prenda v. Godfread et al. “defamation” lawsuit
Today a hearing in Prenda v. the Internets (ILND 13-cv-04341) was held in Chicago. Cook County Record’s reporter Bethany Krajelis was there:
U.S. District Judge John Darrah at a brief status hearing today granted the motion for sanctions that defendants Paul Godfread and Alan Cooper filed this past fall against Prenda and Paul Duffy, who served as the firm’s sole officer before it dissolved and now serves as its attorney in the matter.
Following his verbal ruling on the sanctions motion, Darrah asked the defendants’ attorney, Erin Russell, to submit a list of itemized fees to the court by Feb. 6, presumably to help him come up with a dollar figure to attach to his decision.
We are waiting for the full order, and I will update this post as soon as it is filed. So far the only new document was a “Notification of docket Entry”:
Note that the judge also denied yesterday’s eleventh hour motion to leave to file surreply. The proposed surreply was weak even by Duffy’s standards, and the explanation of the last minute submission is mind-boggling:
Plaintiff has this week realized that that [sic], while it filed a motion to file a Surreply in opposition to Defendants’ Motion for Sanctions (filed on or about October 7, 2013 (ECF #52.)), he did not notice the motion for a hearing. This was simply the result of an oversight on the part of Plaintiff. Plaintiff now re-submits the proposed Surreply and respectfully requests that the Court grant it leave to file it.
As Raul nicely put it,
@simAlity *eye-roll* as to the excuse, *facepalm* as to the arguments
— Raul (@Raul15340965) January 22, 2014
Indeed.
Update
2/3/2014
We have been waiting for more than a week, and finally Memorandum Opinion and Order has been issued by Judge Darrah. To say it is harsh on Prenda and Paul Duffy is an understatement. Enjoy the sweetness of justice:
Based on the conduct of Prenda and its counsel, it is clear that sanctions are warranted.
Duffy had the opportunity to address this lie in his response to the Motion for Sanctions and did not. To fabricate what a federal judge said in a ruling before another court falls well outside the bounds of proper advocacy and demonstrates a serious disregard for the judicial process.
Prenda and Duffy’s arguments against the Motion for Sanctions are unpersuasive at best. In a final act of audacity, Prenda, in response to Defendants’ Motion for Sanctions, contends that the “Court should award Prenda the fees it incurred in defending against Defendants’ patently frivolous motion.”
Coverage
- TechDirt: Judge Slams Prenda And Paul Duffy; Calls Them Out For Lying And ‘Duplicitous Behavior’ by Mike Masnick.
- ArsTechnica: Judge slams Prenda for “sophistry” in defamation suit sanction by Joe Mullin.
Fight © Trolls 
Yay Erin! Yay Jason Sweet! Thank you Judge Darrah.
BOOM! More Sanctions. BOOM! BOOM!
Shari: “Hi hon, how’d it go?”
Paul: “Not well.”
Shari: “Well, at least we didn’t lose any plane fare.”
Paul: “Dammit Shari, we got it bad!”
Shari: “So, no sex tonight?”
Click
Judge Darrah is no joke. He seems very nice and grandfatherly initially, but that is deceiving. He will give litigants a lot of rope, but will issue sanctions. I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights thanks to Judge Darrah.
The trolls had a good run in the Northern District of Illinois, but it’s time to put an end to the suits. Another reason the judges in the NDIL don’t like the troll suits is that when they are brought, their chambers get inundated by letters and calls from non-lawyers who don’t know how to navigate the system.