Spamhaus Moves for Dismissal; Comcast Judge Out
E360 Insight saw significant developments in two of its legal battles last week as Spamhaus filed a motion to dismiss the e-mail marketer’s suit against it and, according to e360 CEO Dave Linhardt, the judge in his lawsuit against Comcast recused himself from the case, citing a conflict of interest.
In Spamhaus’s motion to dismiss e360’s suit, the anti-spam outfit claimed Linhardt and his lawyers have been stymieing the discovery process by failing to provide required evidence.
E360 won a default judgment of $11.7 million against Spamhaus in 2006 when the anti-spam outfit failed to show up in court.
A federal appeals court in 2007 vacated the judgment, ruling that the lower court hadn’t done enough to investigate Linhardt’s damages claims. The suit has since been back in the lower court where Linhardt was supposed to have been documenting how much Spamhaus’s blocks against his e-mail servers have cost his business.
However, according to Spamhaus’s motion to dismiss, Linhardt and his lawyers have been stonewalling.
“We respectfully ask the court to declare that ‘enough is enough,’” said the motion. “We have spent months and months attempting to get the most basic information about the basis of the plaintiff’s claim. Plaintiffs have defaulted, stonewalled and neglected.”
Linhardt said in an e-mail exchange with this newsletter that he has provided “plenty” of discovery.
“There was a dispute which delayed my deposition and our lead attorney has been pretty busy with another trial,” he wrote. “The new discovery deadline is end of September so I don’t really understand Spamhaus’ motion. I’m sure we will file an objection and hope to win on the merits.”
Spamhaus’s motion also asks the court to force Linhardt to pay Spamhaus’s legal bills resulting from this suit.
Meanwhile, Judge James B. Zagel in U.S. District Court in Northern Illinois, has apparently removed himself from the battle between e360 and Comcast that began when Linhardt sued the nation’s No. 2 ISP, claiming it had unfairly blocked his company’s permission-based e-mail from reaching Comcast subscribers and cost him business.
Judge Zagel decided against e360 in April, ruling that the Communications Decency Act of 1996 protects Comcast from being held liable for mistakenly blocking even permission-based e-mail when it’s part of a good-faith effort to protect its subscribers from spam.
Zagel also in July ruled against Linhardt’s motion to have Comcasts’ countersuit against him dismissed.
Last week, according to Linhardt, Zagel recused himself from the case, saying that his father left him a large inheritance that included Comcast stock.
It is unclear what effect this will have the proceedings.
“According to my attorney, Zagel said he should vacate all of the rulings but even that would be a conflict,” said Linhardt.
