AF Holdings’ Individual suits in Central California
In several of the AF Holdings v. John Doe cases in the Central District of California, early discovery orders have been VACATED and orders to show cause have been entered. Let’s take a quick look.
In 2:12-cv-05712, leave to take early discovery was granted on 7/12/12 by Magistrate Judge Walsh:
About three months later, on 10/19/12, that order was vacated by Judge Otis Wright.
“The Court hereby VACATES any prior order in this case allowing for the issuance of a Rule 45 subpoena…”
Additionally, the Judge had a few rather interesting things to say:
“This Court has a duty to protect the innocent citizens of this district from this sort of legal shakedown…”
and
“Thus, when viewed with the public interest in mind, the Court is reluctant to allow any fishing-expedition discovery when all a plaintiff has is an IP address—the burden is on the plaintiff to find other ways to more precisely identify the accused infringer without causing collateral damage.”
The action isn’t over, however, as the court is giving AF Holdings a chance to justify why early discovery is warranted:
Thus, the Court hereby ORDERS AF Holdings TO SHOW CAUSE in writing within 14 days why early discovery is warranted in this situation.
However, those fourteen days went by, and there is no brief by AF Holdings on the docket!
This has apparently happened in a number of cases in the Central District of California. For example, in 2:12-cv-07406, another AF Holdings v. Doe case, Judge Wright entered the same order. In that case, just before the 14-day period expired, AF Holdings dismissed the suit with prejudice. Perhaps this provides insight into why AF Holdings hasn’t filed in C.D. Cal. since late September.
UPDATE: As Raul points out, a response to the order to show case was entered in the lead case, 2:12-cv-05709. There are 24 total cases listed in the response. This is the response by Gibbs:
This is a good post. It simply demonstrates that while Prenda may have the teeth to name (and sometimes serve) 10, 20, 50 defendants, their manpower is simply logistically limited, and they cannot go after everyone. Brett Gibbs is an attorney just like I am. Unless they have figured out a way to bend time, he still has only 24 hours to his day, as do I. They can be more efficient by offloading work to local counsel (a practice my firm is in favor of), but just like I need to have my hands in everything that local counsel does, so do they. I am certainly not a control addict and I give people the leeway to do what they need to do, but I do not like things happening in my cases if I do not know about them first. This is the same with them. Thus, they could hire 50 or 100 local counsel — 1-2 for each state if they wish — but still, someone still needs to oversee them, and Steele is one person.
houstonlawy3r
November 21, 2012 at 1:07 pm
Gibbs did put in a Response albeit a smarmy one http://ia601503.us.archive.org/23/items/gov.uscourts.cacd.536407/gov.uscourts.cacd.536407.10.0.pdf
Raul
November 21, 2012 at 3:26 pm
I’ve updated the post to reflect the response. It doesn’t appear on the docket for each case, and I didn’t look at every case, so I missed it! Appreciate you letting me know.
copyrightclerk
November 21, 2012 at 3:38 pm
I’m watching this one as it will be interesting to see how Judge Wright reacts to the condescending Response; expecting thunderbolts.
Raul
November 21, 2012 at 4:47 pm