Crime & Federalism

Steven Gibson is the CEO of Righthaven, a notorious copyright troll that has found itself beaten up in court, over and over again. Courts simply do not trust Righthaven, and thus people being sued by Righthaven/Steven Gibson should think hard before settling. 

In a rececent court order, a federal judge accused Righthaven, and thus Gibson, of unethical conduct. No, the trial court did much more. The court issued a show-cause order. That, the court gave Gibson 20 days to prove to the court that Gibson did not lie to the court. If the federal judge is correct, Gibson committed serious misconduct: 

As shown in the preceding pages, the Court believes that Righthaven has made multiple inaccurate and likely dishonest statements to the Court. Here, however, the Court will only focus on the most factually brazen: Righthaven’s failure to disclose Stephens Media as an interested party in Righthaven’s Certificate of Interested Parties. (Dkt. #5.) Rule 7.1-1 of the Local Rules of Practice for the District of Nevada requires parties to disclose “all persons, associations of persons, firms, partnerships or corporations (including parent corporations) which have a direct, pecuniary interest in the outcome of the case.” This Local Rule requires greater disclosure than Federal Rule 7.1, which only requires non-governmental corporate parties to disclose parent corporations or corporations owning more than 10% of the party’s stock. Frankly, if receiving 50% of litigation proceeds minus costs (Dkt. #79, SAA Section 5) does not create a pecuniary interest under Local Rule 7.1-1, the Court isn’t sure what would.

Making this failure more egregious, not only did Righthaven fail to identify Stephens Media as an interested party in this suit, the Court believes that Righthaven failed to disclose Stephens Media as an interested party in any of its approximately 200 cases filed in this District. Accordingly, the Court orders Righthaven to show cause, in writing, no later than two (2) weeks from the date of this order, why it should not be sanctioned for this flagrant misrepresentation to the Court.

The full order is here: Download Order. One would hope that the State Bar of Nevada would begin an investigation asking why a federal judge "believes that Righthaven has made multiple inaccurate and likely dishonest statements to the Court," involving at least one "flagrant misrepresentation."