Guardaley | Voltage
Defendant in Elf-Man v. Lamberson was awarded $100K in attorney fees
So, today we have this long anticipated decision, and it is good:
[…]IT IS HEREBY ORDERED:
1. Defendant’s Motion for Attorneys’ Fees (ECF No. 175) is GRANTED
in part and DENIED in part. Defendant is awarded attorney fees in the amount
of $100,961. […]
While the defendant asked for $200K, his demands were cut in half: a reduction of fees is traditional in this game, so I hope that the defense is satisfied with the outcome. There is a funny part: even after the judge awarded the fees in principle and his final decision addressing the exact amount was pending, the plaintiff offered to compensate the defendant in the amount of… $5,000.
Judge Thomas Rice recently made headlines with his statement that high statutory rates in this type of cases may run afoul of the Eight Amendment to the US Constitution. Alas, the judge stopped short of addressing the well-documented allegations of massive fraud upon the US courts by this and similar plaintiffs — Judge Rice simply ignored the evidence provided by the defense over the course of the litigation. This evidence resulted from the defendant’s attorney Chris Lynch enormous research of the “German trail.” This case has been closed, but Lynch’s findings don’t disappear with the case closure, and we will continue analyzing and investigating the international copyright shakedown Mafia and will report on new discoveries.
While this is a big victory over the law abusers, I regret to note that the predatory practice continues unabated: troll David Lowe (one of the plaintiff’s attorneys) still files fraudulent lawsuits in the State of Washington, and his brothers-in-scams in other states are busy extorting citizenry. I hope not for long. If the evidence substantiating one particular fraud — fake declarations and forged signatures filed in nearly 200 cases nationwide — reaches its critical mass and attracts interest of the FBI, we will see a downfall bigger than Prenda’s.
Congratulations to Ryan Lamberson, whose innocence was vindicated, and to his attorney Chris Lynch, whose titanic efforts and superb skills made it possible!
Coverage
- Techdirt: Judge Awards $100k In Attorney’s Fees Over Copyright Trolling, But Downplays Fraud Aspects
- TorrentFreak: Falsely Accused “Pirate” wins $101,000 in Attorney Fees
Update
7/20/2015
It seems that the defendant received the payment:
Followup
Fight © Trolls 
Small steps, small victories. They will build up until there is a great wave ready to be cited by other lawyers in other courts to wash away this crap litigation scheme.
This is a win of a hard fought battle, the war will continue but it will become clear that we will win the war.
I say we need to send a couple cans of Whoop Ass to each of the Plaintiff attorneys; David Lowe and Maureen VanderMay. I get a chuckle how VanderMay uses two caps 0n her last name (quite a clown) she turned out to be.
Hopefully the plaintiff will pay up so as to avoid a Prenda style collection circus. 🙂
Now we will see if they are as stupid as Prenda and don’t pay up. It is a small chunk of their loot, but their greed may not allow them to part with it. Well done Mr. Lamberson and attorney Lynch (and others). If they are so stupid as to try to fight the award, I’m sure Judge Rice is not going to look to kindly on them. Please tell the court that Plaintiff (Elf-Man LLC) is broke. I would love to see just how much settlement they received and where the money flowed. I think this story still has a few chapters left.
DTD 🙂
While the smart thing to do would be to pay up, I doubt we will see that from the Trolls. Much like when they got their default judgement s and the Lamberson decision had not came down yet, the Troll still had the urge to go and try and scoop as much cash as they could with the defaults, so I doubt we will see the trolls do the right and smart thing here.
I would be of the belief that we will see the trolls take a page out of the Prenda playbook and try to deny, deflect, and delay any attempts to have to pay the fee award. Lowe’s attempt with comedy by the way of offering a 5k sympathy fee payment ought to only encourage Lynch/Lamberson to keep the trolls feet to the fire.
I would be of the opinion that we will hear claims of how their client can’t pay, and there is no assets and bla bla bla. The bad thing I see in Rice’s ruling is that I see no mention of any of the Plaintiff attorneys being held accountable to pay any of the fees which is a shame really.
Now Elf-MAN LLC is going to be the one tagged to pay the fee award, but of course there will be appeals and delays and the usual run around, but I see trouble on the Horizon much like the Prenda gang had with AF Holdings.
Elf-MAN LLC has taken a lot of settlements in from it’s various cases all over the U.S., and has a lot of actions still pending, which means it has earned and still has the potential to receive monies from settlements and judgement’s which is going to be a headache for them.
If they try and pull a Prenda. sooner or later they are going to have to answer some questions and trot out a face to answer those questions ( much like when Paul Hansmeier did the Prenda two-step at the AF Holdings depostion ) and we all know how well that went for the Prenda gang….Well the gang at ELF-MAN LLC could be in the same predicament ( Hey Lowe… I hear Mark Lutz is available to be CEO or a Corporate Representative for hire! … and for no pay whatsoever )
The only way the Trolls avoid the scrutiny the Prenda gang got is if they pay, otherwise sooner or later someone is going to have to be the face of ELF-MAN LLC and come forward and answer some questions , they aren’t going to be able to duck this very easily.
Much like with Prenda, this is going to be something to keep an eye on, the potential for some collateral damage for the trolls is high, should be fun to see how they handle this without incurring more costs to them.