Prenda's Brett Gibbs Tries To Avoid Answering Questions About Alan Cooper By Dismissing Case
from the cut-and-run dept
Another day, another story of questionable activity on behalf of copyright troll Prenda Law in regards to Alan Cooper. As you may recall, Alan Cooper, who was employed as a house caretaker for copyright troll John Steele (of Prenda Law, though at times he denies this), raised some concerns with the court in a few cases involving some mysterious shell companies -- AF Holdings and Ingenuity 13. At issue: the CEO named in the court papers for those companies was named Alan Cooper, and caretaker Alan Cooper believed that Steele or others at Prenda had faked his identity, as he had nothing to do with any of it. While Cooper has since sued Prenda and John Steele, this issue showed up in some other cases.In one case involving Ingenuity 13, Prenda was represented by lawyer Brett Gibbs. Opposing lawyer Morgan Pietz asked Gibbs to confirm whether or not Ingenuity 13's Alan Cooper was a different Alan Cooper than Steele's caretaker, leading to a ridiculous conversation in which Gibbs played dumb and refused to answer the simple question. Pietz than took the issue to the court, who ordered Gibbs to answer some questions about Cooper. Gibbs' response was to claim that the judge should be thrown off the case for bias. Since that failed, Gibbs has moved onto the next strategy.
Simply try to walk away. He filed a notice saying he was dismissing the case (though he could file it again at some point). Effectively, he's trying to cut and run before having to answer those questions about Alan Cooper. Of course, in a situation where he should be trying to get out of court as quietly as possible, he chose, instead, to give the judge the equivalent of the middle finger: whining that he was dropping the case because the judge had made it "futile" to continue.
Plaintiff maintains its contention that it is factually impossible to identify a John Doe through an IP address without obtaining ISP subscriber information; as such, Plaintiff now dismisses this action without prejudice in order to avoid the futility of attempting to litigate these cases under such circumstances.Of course, that's got nothing to do with anything. Gibbs appears to not want to answer the questions. Unfortunately, he may not be so lucky. After the case was already dismissed, the judge ordered a status report, and a future conference, concerning the questions raised by Pietz.
As a lawyer explained to the Fight Copyright Trolls site, it appears that, while the judge can't stop the case from being closed, he can still continue this line of exploration:
...the Judge retains authority/jurisdiction as to all remaining collateral issues such as sanctions as well as potential inappropriate conduct of counsel/parties. I believe that since the discovery order was issued after the dismissal, it is likely that the Court sees the dismissal as potentially motivated to hide inappropriate conduct or even perjury etc… Technically the judge could still allow discovery on the Alan Cooper issue or even order Gibbs or Steele or even “Alan Cooper” to appear and testify. If they refuse, the court can invoke its plenary contempt power. That’s when the ____ hits the fan.We'll see where this goes, but Gibbs trying to sneak out on answering the questions, while at the same time whining about it to the judge, just seems to be him asking for trouble.
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Filed Under: alan cooper, brett gibbs, dismissal
Companies: prenda, prenda law
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Hilarious nonetheless. I thought Righthaven could not be outdone. Then along came Charles Carreon. I thought his lunacy could never be topped. And along came Prenda. I think, at this point, no serious copyright troll/attorney/law firm could ever in their wildest delusions hope to top them.
- Does "Who's on first" skit in actual court.
- Steals a man's identity.
- Accuses judge of bias, after he begins questioning who "Alan Cooper" is.
- Further refuses to answer questions concerning who is "Alan Cooper".
- Accuses another attorney of representing a non existent client.
- Claims there are no defendants, so says giving them IP addresses is okay.
- Has a defendant "take a dive" in lieu of being sued and then after sued him anyway.
- Plagiarizes (word for word) a failed filing.
- And now this.
Prenda Law. The gift that keeps on giving.
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STOP TEASING ME!!
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Prenda and the courts
What amazes me more than anything is the dysfunction of our courts.
I guess nobody knows how to fix this.
The hammer should have come down on Prenda long ago and they should now be sitting in jail.
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Re: Prenda and the courts
Nobody could afford a hammer at the standard government rates, so they had to settle for a 'stern talking to'...
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a) You can't accuse others of wrongdoing willy nilly and punish them according to what you think is best, you actually have to have some proof, about who is doing what, even if that seems obvious proof is a must in any decent legal system, so I do understand judges "exploring" the issues before coming down hard on the parties involved.
b) All judges were lawyers once, they all have a favorable bias towards them and they all understand even if in a gut instinct way that they can't just punish lawyers all the time because it could be them sitting where they are and so they have more patience with lawyers than they would otherwise have with anybody else. This is a behavior empowered by the first reason, it can be bad but hey you take the good with the bad.
With that said, Mr. Steele is nearing that threshold where he will find himself in hot water anytime now.
His incompetence fulled by his arrogance will be the end of his career.
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This is six strikes states we are talking about?
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Re: Prenda and the courts
These turdhurlers are openly spitting on the court system, in a judge's face, and are privy to who knows how many people's personal information to abuse however they wish...
If any nails ever needed hammering, it's conmen like these.
It's really not even funny anymore. It's grotesque.
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This is happening over and over again the same way, with clever variations, in numerous districts and Prenda keeps on trucking along.
In the meantime, some guy who is in a position to lose millions of bucks a day is more important than these other people.
I'm sorry, but this is dysfunctional. I understand it is a judge's job to follow due process. So perhaps what we need are more reasonable copyright laws along with judicial reform so small matters are not allowed to clog the courts indefinitely.
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Then I figured out how to "Keep Calm and Carreon" (You see what I did there?) but that seems to have been short lived too.
But now, I have John Steele and Prenda Law. I have to tune in daily to see what antics they will be up to next. Every day it's a new episode! I want to see what silly things Brett Gibbs will get into today. Will he finally get the discovery he seeks? Or will the real Alan Cooper one day mysteriously walk into the courtroom? What role does John Steele play in all of this? The season finale is heating up to be one of TechDirt's most exciting ever.
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http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com or http://dietrolldie.com
Pretenda makes the headlines there ALL the time.
And there is much more there than the headlines, you can see Does going from terrified to empowered. You can see discussions tearing apart the "facts" of the cases, and how badly they are crafted.
I am very sad that no Judge has bothered to understand how Pretenda and others are avoiding paying millions in fees for these cases. We can't have PACER docs for free, but because you have a law degree you can avoid paying millions in fees by lumping hundreds/thousands into single cases?
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Brett Gibbs and John Steele arrive in Antigua and get picked up by US marines and whisked off to Guantanamo Bay.
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Has anyone thought to search through Craigslist for ads offering "Employment opportunities for people with the name Alan Cooper"?
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Apparently a sharp commenter over on the Fight Copyright Trolls blog has already thought of this last November:
http://fightcopyrighttrolls.com/2012/11/30/copyright-troll-prenda-law-is-accused-of-usi ng-a-stolen-identity-for-their-offshore-plaintiffs/comment-page-1/#comment-55922
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It seems I'm not the only one
Perhaps TD should try to follow another entertaining IP litigation gone wrong after this one ends. They are great for comedy relief in between other IP and Tech related happenings.
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Re: It seems I'm not the only one
See the more recent TechDirt article on how Ericsson just sold 2,185 patents to a company reliant on the troll business model. With that many patents, it dramatically increases the chance that at least some slice of their attorney pool will be one of the candidates with the best potential to be among the next headliner.
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Is that really the motive?
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Deja Sue
He has finally proved the rule about what happens in Vegas--and now it really looks like the alleged sleazeball Gibbs and whatever his company/organization/halloween costume he is currently wearing will do the same.
I wonder... after losing repeatedly and becoming a poster child for trolling online, plus antagonizing a federal judge or two... what's the next act?
I do remember what it was for O.J.
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