YNOT – A federal district judge has slapped a Dallas attorney with a $10,000 fine for what the court termed “staggering chutzpah” and “gross abuse of subpoena power.”
The sanction arose from a case Evan Stone filed in September 2010 against 670 unnamed peer-to-peer file traders accused of infringing a copyright belonging to adult content producer Mick Haig Productions. Judge David Godbey asked the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen to step in on the side of the defendants.
The case went south almost immediately when EFF and Public Citizen complained to Godbey that defendants were receiving demand letters before the judge authorized subpoenas to uncover their identities. Stone, it appears, sent subpoenas to internet service providers without the required judicial approval.
Stone’s hubristic overreaching infuriated the judge, especially since it was not the attorney’s first procedural misstep: In a previous case, Stone sent subpoenas more than a month after a different judge withdrew permission to do so. In fact, according to Godbey’s sanction order, “Stone issued the subpoena on the same day that he voluntarily dismissed the underlying case.”
“To summarize the staggering chutzpah involved in this case: Stone asked the Court to authorize sending subpoenas to the ISPs,” Godbey’s order read. “The Court said ‘not yet.’ Stone sent the subpoenas anyway. The Court appointed the Ad Litems [EFF and Public Citizen] to argue whether Stone could send the subpoenas. Stone argued that the Court should allow him to — even though he had already done so — and eventually dismissed the case ostensibly because the Court was taking too long to make a decision. All the while, Stone was receiving identifying information and communicating with some Does, likely about settlement. The Court rarely has encountered a more textbook example of conduct deserving of sanctions.”
In addition to the fine, Godbey ordered Stone to pay EFF’s and Public Citizen’s attorney fees in the case at hand, reveal any settlements he made with defendants as a result of the premature subpoena and send a copy of Godbey’s order to every judge overseeing any case in which Stone is involved, regardless the subject of the case.
Stone apparently feels less than chastised.
“I’m just going to have to let Justin Bieber do my quoting for me,” the attorney wrote to Ars Technica in an email. “‘Whenever you knock me down I will not stay on the ground.”
