Devin Nunes' Favorite Lawyer On The Hook For Over $20k In Sanctions
from the pay-up-biss dept
Last month we wrote that Rep. Devin Nunes' favorite lawyer, Steven Biss, who has been filing frivolous, vexatious SLAPP suit after frivolous, vexatious SLAPP suit, was finally facing some sanctions. The specific case did not directly involve Nunes, but rather one of his aides, Derek Harvey, who had filed a ridiculous SLAPP suit against CNN. As we wrote last month, the court had easily tossed the original lawsuit and warned Biss not to file an amended complaint unless he had a credible legal theory. Biss did not have a credible legal theory, but he still filed an amended complaint. And thus, the court issued sanctions, saying that Harvey, Biss and other lawyers would be on the hook for CNN's legal fees.
The latest filing in the case is the bill coming due. Harvey and Biss need to pay CNN $21,437.50 in legal fees (and an additional $52.26 in costs and expenses). That might not seem like that much in the grand scheme of things (especially for a lawyer who has claimed his client, Devin Nunes, is owed over a billion dollars for defamation, but it is still real money that someone is going to need to pay -- though it remains an open question as to who is actually going to pay it).
There's not much to see in the ruling itself, as it basically says that the fees CNN's lawyers outlined are within the standards that the court's local rules say are "presumptively reasonable." The lawyers admit that they're actually asking for less than they normally charge in order to keep them "reasonable" in the Court's eyes, and the Court basically says "sounds good."
It does often seem that lawyers who file tons of frivolous and vexatious lawsuits are able to get away with it for a while, with courts giving them many, many chances and being extremely reluctant to issue sanctions. And, even when sanctions are issued, they tend to be relatively low. However, with such repeat offenders, we've often seen that courts across the country take notice, and once one court has sanctioned this kind of behavior, it can open the floodgates. We'll see what happens in other Biss lawsuits.
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Filed Under: derek harvey, devin nunes, legal fees, sanctions, slapp, steven biss
Companies: cnn
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Actual consequences for bullshit behavior — you gotta love seein’ it.
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It would be nice to see, if any, future sanctions be logarithmic in scale.
IE, "Let's just see how stupid you can be."
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I'd prefer exponential in scale.
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Ah yep, I agree. Exp > Log
I got the two curves mixed up.
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Re: Re: Re:Exp > Log
It's very common to see the two interchanged in common parlance, but we know what you meant.
https://revisionmaths.com/advanced-level-maths-revision/pure-maths/calculus/exponentials-and- logarithms
We're a generally forgiving bunch here.
"Can logarithm of a negative number be real?" , https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=soFDU-1knNE
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Re: Re: Re: Re:Exp > Log
At first i sort of saw that link as revisionist maths, and then got chills realizing that this is probably a thing somewhere.
Is there a numbered or named rule covering this?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:Exp > Log
Probably. I just really, really hope it isn't "34".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:Exp > Log
"Probably. I just really, really hope it isn't "34"."
...go back and read rule 34 again.
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Math newbies. You want to go for the factorial: n! = n + (n-1)!
21437^2 = 459,544,969
21437! = 19,613,364,732,524,698,964,556 and change (My calculator first choked and just said "Overflow". I had to put the decimal point two places to the left to get a meaningful number.)
Somebody's gonna empty Amazon's whole warehouse of Maalox, that's a given!
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AAARGH!
I proof read with my eyes closed, obviously. The formula should read:
n! = n X (n-1)!
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And without using any calculation tools, I can tell you that the last digit of 21437! is 0. And any standard 10 digit calculator is limited to 69! because they usually stop just short of a Googol.
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More than that...without calculating or heavy accounting
21437! has at least 2143 zeros at the end of it...and at least 60,000 total digits!
Hint: 21437! = 21437 21436 21435 ...321,
For the zeros, notice 2143 of those factors end in at least one zero, and I'm neglecting all the ones ending in more than one zero, the 2143 pairs of factors ending in 5 and 2, and more combinations.
For the digits, we can simply count that we have 20,437 factors larger than 1000, and each of these adds 3 digits apiece to the total.
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...You know, I was going to suggest tetration, but that's too much for anyone.
For reference:
1^^1 = 1
2^^2 = 2^2 = 4
3^^3 = 3^3^3 > 7 billion
4^^4 = 4^4^4^4 > 8*10^153
5^^5 = 5^5^5^5^5 = don't even think about it
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5^^5 > 5^(4^^4) > 5^ (8 * 10^153) > 10^(4 * 10^153).
So a number with 4*10^153 digits. Kewl! No wonder my computer got so heavy with all the bits!
(Oh, and that number ends in the digits 125, since all odd powers of 5 except 5^1 end in 125.)
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Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
When a lawyer faces a penalty for their behavior in court you know they really screwed up, because it takes some serious work to get a judge to issue more than a stern finger wagging when it comes to lawyers as many, many articles on TD can attest to.
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Re: Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
Which is why Rudy is soooo screwed.
"We don't like to sanction lawyers, but to sign a search warrant? Very very rare. Yea, I'll sign." - any judge.
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Re: Re: Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
"Which is why Rudy is soooo screwed."
So is advancing the Sidney "no reasonable person" Powell legal theory a credible legal theory?
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Re: Re: Re: Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
Well it would be but it's she's screwed one way or another...maybe both.
Look up on Youtube "Kraken" & Legal Eagle. He does a pretty good job of explaining this.
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Re: Re: Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
The pathetic part is Rudy must know this from his tenure at SDNY. If they're raiding your house serving warrants instead of a friendly sit down, that means it's going to be a rough ride.
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Re: Re: Re: Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
If they're raiding the house of a lawyer, let alone one who directly served a president, I think you can bet they'll have done their homework before even considering signing the search order.
But, for me, the funniest part of it is that apparently he's been trying to call in Trump's debts in order to help fight this. Rudy, you expect Trump to pay his bills? Have you... met Trump? He left his voters stranded in freezing conditions after rallies because he wasn't paying the bus companies to take the back from the venue, when he was trying to convince them to give him the vote, do you think he'll pay the guy who failed to overturn the election for him?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Going above and beyond... in abusing the system
If they're raiding the house of a lawyer, let alone one who directly served a president, I think you can bet they'll have done their homework before even considering signing the search order.
Judges were originally lawyers and doing their homework has never been a standard or even a common practice on either side of our common border.
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Looks like the judge got Bissed off.
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And someone just got Biss SLAPPed.
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That's what happens when you Bisslead the court.
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So, real adult legal stuff (like not made-up crap) is Biss left to the professionals then?
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Lurch groans
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Yep, we're mostly groan-ups here.
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Ah, the Bississitudes of life...
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Looks like Biss milked Nunes for all his license is worth. Sometimes you get cream, but mostly it curdles in front of a judge.
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Thanks, I really needed the image of Biss milking Nunes for his cream. /sarc
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More than just cream floats to the top.
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An idea!
Bliss could tell the court that his credible legal theory is to increase CNN's litigation costs! That would work! It would send a strong message to the court and get the court's attention.
Bliss: if you're reading this, DON'T actually do this.
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Moooooo
I bet they make Devin Nunes' Cow pay for this.
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