3d DCA Watch -- Well Well Well?

Well well well let's first wish Judge Ramirez congratulations again for his service and best wishes in his new role as JAMS mediator.

It was a very nice retirement party -- Rudy Sorondo told a few tales, Chief Judge Wells quoted John Lennon (hey, so did I!), Judge R thanked his family, clerks, JAs and colleagues, in all it was a very lovely event.

Oh, and the Judge's portrait was revealed, very striking:

(Oops, wrong photo!)

I kid -- it was a very nice ceremony and we wish the Judge much continued success.

Speaking of Rudy Sorondo, here he is arguing for the appellants in a case where Judge Manno-Shurr struck the defendants' pleadings based on fraud on the court:

On August 13, 2010, the Bank filed its Motion to Strike, alleging the defendants schemed to defraud the trial court by submitting perjured deposition testimony, suborning and attempting to suborn perjury, and forging corporate documents, all in an effort to conceal the Cohens’ ownership interests in the Corporate Defendants and Offshore Entities. On October 1, 2010, the trial court commenced an evidentiary hearing on the Motion to Strike, and received evidence over a three-day period. After the hearing, the trial court concluded the defendants intended to defraud the Florida court, and struck their pleadings. Upon review of the case law and the voluminous record, we affirm in part, and reverse in part.

Basically, Judge Rothenberg's opinion goes into exquisite detail and upholds the lower court ruling, except as to one defendant (not represented by Rudy).  It ends this way:

While we are mindful of Florida’s strong public policy favoring the resolution of cases on their merits, the judiciary cannot be, and is not, impotent against those wishing to corrupt the litigation process by employing fraud and deception at every turn. Accordingly, we affirm the default judgment as it pertains to the Cohens and the Corporate Defendants because the record evidence establishes, clearly and convincingly, that these litigants have engaged in a massive and unprecedented scheme to defraud the trial court below.

Not a pretty picture (I don't mean the hot tub -- I love that picture!).

John Lennon RIP

SFL Friday -- Grow Old With Me.

Rumpole notes that tomorrow would be John Lennon's 70th birthday.

I've spent the last few days listening to the newly remastered versions of John's last two albums, the one he formally released shortly before his death (Double Fantasy) and the rough cuts he worked on that Yoko released posthumously (Milk and Honey).

It's pretty remarkable how many songs deal with the future, the spiritual reunion of John and Yoko in heaven, and in fact directly foreshadow his death.

Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking about lyrics like this from "Grow Old With Me":

Grow old along with me
Whatever fate decrees
We will see it through
For our love is true
God bless our love
God bless our love

Or this from "Every Man Has A Woman That Loves Him":

Every man has a woman who loves him,
Rain or shine or life or death.

If he finds her in this life time,
He will know when he presses his ear to her breast.

Why do I roam when I know youre the one?
Why do I laugh when I feel like crying?

Every woman has a man who loves her,
Rise or fall of her life and in death.

Or this from "Dear Yoko":

Oh Yoko!
I'll never ever ever ever gonna let you go,
Oh Yoko!
I'll never ever ever ever gonna let you go,

Even when I'm miles at sea,
And nowhere is the place to be,
Your spirit's watching over me dear Yoko,

Then there's this from "Borrowed Time":

Now I am older
The more that I see the less that I know for sure
Now I am older ah hah
The future is brighter and now is the hour

Living on borrowed time
Without a thought for tomorrow
Living on borrowed time
Without a thought for tomorrow 

I could go on and I'm probably missing the most obvious examples, but you get the idea.

You have to wonder whether there was something in the zeitgeist, in that amazingly short yet fertile period that John and Yoko and his creative team worked on these songs, that these artists picked up on and channeled directly into their music.

Whatever it was, as John himself seemed to realize, his presence most definitely lives on.

RIP

Glenn Garvin Still Lives In Tuckahoe.

It's no secret that Glenn Garvin's entire worldview was shaped by the culture wars of the 60s as filtered through 70s era sitcoms -- wars in which somehow Garvin failed to get sufficiently high or sufficiently laid.

In today's column, Garvin fearmongers over a current fixation of the far right -- Obama's continuing plan to turn America into socialized Europe, this time by way of the VAT.

Forget that taxes have gone down, or that Obama has not ruled anything in or out, the important thing to know is that NIXON AT ONE POINT CONSIDERED IT!

Umm, ok, good way to deal with highly complex national finance policy.

Let's see, Nixon also opened relations with China, signed the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (and the Clean Water Act), created the EPA, called Jews "cheap kikes" and tried to deport John Lennon.

So he was on a roll there until the last two, I think.

Is it the least bit persuasive to talk about what Nixon once thought of doing?

The pros and cons of a VAT, and how it would possibly be structured and implemented, are a discussion for another day -- like when there's a slight possibility it might actually happen.

But why let that get in the way of a good old-fashioned Glenn Garvin fear session?

Remember how Garvin shouted to the rafters about Obama personally bringing back another 70s' era relic, the Fairness Doctrine?

Oh yeah:

President Obama opposes any move to bring back the so-called Fairness Doctrine, a spokesman told FOXNews.com Wednesday.

The statement is the first definitive stance the administration has taken since an aide told an industry publication last summer that Obama opposes the doctrine -- a long-abolished policy that would require broadcasters to provide opposing viewpoints on controversial issues.

"As the president stated during the campaign, he does not believe the Fairness Doctrine should be reinstated," White House spokesman Ben LaBolt told FOXNews.com.

So much for Garvin's crystal ball.

Holy hail now he's got me thinking about Adrienne Barbeau again.

And Mrs. Naugatuck.

Together.

With Glenn Garvin.

D'oh!

(Ok, now it's officially getting weird.)

Congress Held An Iqbal Party!

I had some time on my hands yesterday, so I went ahead and did a Jay Z-White Album-style mashup of the Congressional testimony on Iqbal yesterday and John Lennon's seminal Plastic Ono Band album from 1970 -- it starts with a gong and a raspy-voiced John primal screaming "Mama don't GOOOOOOOOOO!!, Iqbal stay home" and ends with Lennon cooing to Arlen Specter "Rule 8 and me, that's reality."

I think it came out pretty.....what, was I the only one to think of that?

But can you believe a group of Congresspeople actually got together yesterday on the Hill and discussed Iqbal, which has already been cited 2700 times in federal court:

"The Iqbal decision will effectively slam shut the courthouse door on legitimate plaintiffs based on the judge's take on the plausibility of a claim, rather than on the actual evidence," Nadler said. The bill will be similar to one introduced earlier this year in the Senate by Sen. Arlen Specter (D., Penn.) but will spell out the new standards more specifically.

The proposed legislation would return pleading standards to where they were after the Supreme Court's 1957 Conley v. Gibson decision, which stated that defendants should have "fair notice" of any claim, but said only cases lacking strong evidence should be dismissed.

Hmm, I've heard of that before -- it's called Rule 8(a).

I knew Specter was old, but he's going all the way back to 1957 and Conley v. Gibson -- hail, that's pre-Mad Men old.

Not so fast, says the dude who actually argued Iqbal, who predicts Gloom and Doom, cats and dogs etc. if we go back to the way things used to be just five months ago:

If passed, the bill could raise legal fees for companies. Electronic discovery proceedings can cost millions of dollars and even tens of millions in anti-trust and other complicated cases, said Gregory Katsas, former U.S. assistant attorney general who helped represent the U.S. government in Ashcroft v. Iqbal.

Come on -- you'd have to be a pretty bad lawyer if you couldn't get a motion to dismiss granted pre-Iqbal if your grounds were that strong.

The problem is the nearly formless "implausibility" standard, which introduces a huge amount of judicial discretion at too early a stage:

"The bottom line is that the Supreme Court knows what the impact of this decision is," Johnson said. "Even defense lawyers have called the Iqbal decision an unexpected gift for the business community."

You know, I find plenty of things "implausible" -- Drew Barrymore dating that idiot from the Mac commercial, for example, but should I get to decide everything?

Ok, don't answer that.

Note to Justice Alito: Leave Our Cultural Icons Alone!

Holy hail, what's this:

Last year Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. won praise for quoting Bob Dylan in an opinion (a dissent, actually, in Spring Communications Co. v. APCC Services.) Not to be outdone, apparently, Justice Samuel Alito Jr. today quoted at length from John Lennon.

It came in Alito's major ruling in Pleasant Grove City, Utah v. Summum, which redefined monuments placed on public land -- such as a Ten Commandments monument -- as a form of government speech, rather than private speech that can run afoul of the First Amendment's Establishment Clause. Some briefs had argued that if a memorial was to be regarded as a message conveyed by government, the government ought to be forced to embrace the message through a formal resolution.

In knocking down that argument, Alito, 58, makes the point that public monuments can convey multiple messages, or messages that change over time. The Statue of Liberty, for example, came to New York as a symbol of friendship between France and the United States, Alito said, and only later became viewed as a beacon welcoming immigrants.

Similarly -- and here's where Lennon comes in -- the mosaic in Central Park in New York City that displays the word "Imagine" as part of the memorial to John Lennon conveys several messages. "Some observers may 'imagine' the musical contributions that John Lennon would have made if he had not been killed," Alito said, while others might think of Lennon's song by that name, which imagined "a world without religion, countries, possessions, greed or hunger."

Alito then drops a footnote that offers the full text of Lennon's lyrics to the song "Imagine."

You've got to be kidding me! Can't you leave our treasured heroes alone? It was bad enough when Glenn Garvin suddenly became a book critic too when the Herald allowed him to trash Lennon a few months ago, now we have Justice Alito quoting "Imagine" at length? And Roberts quoting Bobby Dylan?

Please, stick to the musical icons that speak to you and the judges and lawyers you travel with -- you know, like Pat Boone and Celine Dion.

Or maybe that great singer/songwriter, John Ashcroft.

But leave the cool ones to the rest of us.