A Judge Made Houston the Top Bankruptcy Court and Helped His Girlfriend Cash In
wsj.com
wsj.com
/s
It's like life is a realtime monopoly game I'm learning tactics all the time.
To be clear, I assume the company wasn't wholly owned by him, correct? Because if it was, it wouldn't be a conflict of interest.
I think there are many changes coming down the pipeline as governments start running out of money. Capital gains tax normalization, capital gains tax treated as income every year instead of at a 'event' when you sell. An effective wealth tax by taxing a percentage of property value. Once those are in place I think they'll crack down on the creative use of corporations to minimize tax.
This is common and legal structure designed to, among other things, reduce taxes owed. It only becomes a problem if the business has shareholders who are not participating in the scheme to shift money to the land company.
Buy the building or even lease it with a sublet clause using a separate entity, and then lease/sublease the space to the cannabis business with the lease fee being, for example, "90% of gross revenue". I'm not sure on the details of how operating funds were pushed back in.
I remember having discussions with people as long ago as the early 2000's about it. I don't remember the specific instance, but I remember thinking "am I the only one who cares about this??"
>and not just "judge who actually wants to do work, not avoid responsibility" like you claim without any particular substantiation.
Are you a patent litigator? It's not a secret in the patent litigation field that many judges are acrimonious to patent cases. I'm not sure what you want me to provide for you as evidence aside from my own personal experience. Also, this is easily inferred by the fact that many litigants, including defendants, are happy to stay in those two districts. I've seen it myself. Generally in my experience, the defendants that want to leave those districts are usually the largest tech companies who seek to move the case to their more-friendly local districts, which is just another form of judge shopping. I'm not sure why that form of judge shopping is comforting to you. Sometimes these defendants win their transfer motions, sometimes they lose. Certainly US federal patent jurisdiction laws/rules and jurisdiction laws/rules in general are made to avoid the need to bring a case against a defendant in front of their friendly local judge. Once again, I would appreciate a substantive reply to these points. Anyway, here's an article about why patent owners aren't litigating their cases when district court judges are holding motions to dismiss before markman hearings, and that many judges are acrimonious to patent cases: https://ipwatchdog.com/2021/11/04/patent-litigation-in-the-u...
Do you have any argument as to why a motion to dismiss should be heard before a markman hearing occurs? That'd be substantive.
It's certainly fallacious to say that all the cases brought in those districts are by trolls. The districts are friendly to patent litigation in general, that's why the trolls go there.
What rules or conduct do you suppose specifically make the districts friendly to trolls in particular? This should be easy for you to answer given the numerous articles you've read about the "interventions" made.
But even he contradicts you:
> The precipitous decline in patent cases commenced beginning in 2016 is likely due to a capitulation by many patent owners who finally started to come to terms with the fact that many legacy patents were simply not going to survive the Federal Circuit’s restrictive interpretation of the Alice/Mayo framework regarding patent eligibility.
That doesn't sound like "judges hate patent law".
> Also, this is easily inferred by the fact that many litigants, including defendants, are happy to stay in those two districts.
You realize that, actually, many defendants are NOT happy to stay in those districts, and that that district routinely denies motions to change venue, motions which are repeatedly successfully challenged in Federal Circuit:
> The decision (In re Fedex Corporate Services (In re Fedex), No. 2022-156, slip op. at 9 (Fed. Cir. Oct. 19, 2022)) is the next in an increasingly long line of mandamus decisions in which the Federal Circuit has reversed or remanded decisions from Texas district courts on this issue, and suggests that the Federal Circuit will continue to carefully scrutinize these decisions on transfer motions going forward.
> Sometimes these defendants win their transfer motions, sometimes they lose.
In fact, overwhelmingly, they lose. Since 2017, over 350 motions to transfer venue, based on the plaintiff not being able to show a presence in the Eastern District were filed, motions which were denied 92% of the time by a single judge.
> Out-of-town companies began renting empty offices, in the hopes of appearing to have East Texas ties.
Source: https://www.dallasnews.com/business/technology/2017/05/23/ho... suits-shaped-a-small-east-texas-town-before-supreme-court-s-ruling/
Businesses knew this was problematic, so were doing things like this.
The thing is, at this point, your contention that there is nothing wrong with how the Eastern District operates - a contention that is not tenable with multiple investigations that have resulted in multiple changes to how the District handles patent cases, and dozens of explorations.
> Academic literature has generally adopted a dim view of granting plaintiffs the ability to select their judge. The legal system apparently shares the same disdain; there are many examples of attorneys being sanctioned because their actions were construed as an attempt to manipulate the system to receive a more favorable judge. Previous scholarship discusses the perniciousness of judge shopping for the legal system and argues that judge shopping is one of the advantages that courts can dangle before potential plaintiffs in an effort to compete for their litigation business.
> https://digitalcommons.wcl.american.edu/facsch_lawrev/489/
> Generally in my experience, the defendants that want to leave those districts are usually the largest tech companies who seek to move the case to their more-friendly local districts, which is just another form of judge shopping.
That depends. It can be, certainly - and that is equally problematic. But if it's to get the case in a district that has a nexus for at least one of the two entities (i.e. not an empty office rented by the plaintiff a week before they filed suit), then I don't see it problematic.
> In 2019 a federal judge named Alan Albright gave a presentation to a group of lawyers. His courthouse in Waco, Texas, where he is the only judge, sits near a sweet shop. The talk was called “Why You Should File Your Next Patent Case Across the Street from the ‘Hey Sugar’”.
> The intellectual-property lawyers who heard his pitch were apparently persuaded. Less than two years after being appointed to the bench, Judge Albright had nearly 20% of the country’s patent cases, according to Lex Machina, a legal-analytics firm. By 2021, he had 23%.
Source: https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/04/16/how-two-s...
A judge, any judge, should not be holding presentations to lawyers about "why you should bring your cases to me". Especially when those lawyers are exclusively IP litigants.
> It's certainly fallacious to say that all the cases brought in those districts are by trolls
I agree. Which is why I never said that, or hinted at that.
> Do you have any argument as to why a motion to dismiss should be heard before a markman hearing occurs? That'd be substantive.
I would want further information. I've never seen anything substantive that claims that such procedural matters are the chief concern of people who have an issue with the Eastern District. Usually, it's things like the above.
> This should be easy for you to answer given the numerous articles you've read about the "interventions" made.
I have responded to your comments with objectivity, and not felt a need to resort to sneering and snark.
>I would want further information. I've never seen anything substantive that claims that such procedural matters are the chief concern of people who have an issue with the Eastern District. Usually, it's things like the above.
You don't know what you are talking about because you don't litigate patents and you just consume pearl clutching media from anti-patent sources. Patent plaintiffs go to those jurisdictions for that reason, Albright isn't particularly friendly to Plaintiffs, but you don't realize that, you just think they chose them because.... you can't explain why. Albright was a big law patent partner, working almost exclusively for the defense. It'd be nice if you could actually get on point here.
Do you have any evidence that shows Albright produces plaintiff-favorable outcomes? No, just pearl clutching.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2015/08/deep-dive-why-we-need-...
However, it was finally neutered by the TC heartland Supreme Court ruling in May 2017:
https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/patent_lawsuits_drop...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TC_Heartland_LLC_v._Kraft_Food...
After this though, as an adjacent commenter posted, Alan Albright, a judge in Waco, took on the responsibility of being a patent troll because he could direct all the tech company cases to him due to Austin being in the western district.
Basically, a single judge in Waco (the only one in that district) made himself known as friendly to patent trolls. So, at one time, he was hearing something near 40% of patent cases in the nation.
You tended to hear more about the troll cases because "patent troll sues tech company" is way more likely to come up on tech sites than something like "wastewater control valve maker sues other wastewater valve maker over patent".
Amazing when the person who is supposed to help and be impartial to deal with matters involving another judge turns out to be a former partner and also involved in the grift and then silenced him.
Always works out that way in these stories.