Apple Claims Ignorance of Jury Foreman's Previous Tangle With Samsung 186
quantr writes with the news that Apple claims that the company "wasn't aware during trial that the foreman of the jury that issued a $1.05 billion verdict against Samsung Electronics Co. was involved in a lawsuit with his former employer, Seagate Technology Inc. 'Samsung asked Apple to disclose when it first learned about the litigation between the jury foreman, Velvin Hogan, and Seagate. Apple responded in a filing yesterday in federal court in San Jose, California. Samsung is attempting to get the Aug. 24 verdict thrown out based on claims the trial was tainted by the foreman's failure during jury selection to tell U.S. District Judge Lucy H. Koh, who presided over the case, that he filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and was sued by Seagate."
Re:Jury wasn't the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
I was actually surprised Nokia won that patent suit against RIM. Wifi on a mobile device? The first thing I said to myself when Wifi came out was "Man, imagine this on a phone. Cheap calls and zero data plan overcharges". That was, of course, until telcos and ISPs decided that rather than innovate or improve infrastructure, they would just litigate against tech that benefits the customer (ie: anti net neutrality, fees for tethering your phone even though it costs the carrier nothing, likewise with SMS messages, which have been around for 20 years apparently, potentially forcing a voice plan on you if you are just using a data plan with Skype).
Regardless of how this affects my business personally, it seems the absurdity with patents and monopolistic practices amongst ISPs (whose money was used to lay the cable in the first place anyway?), there is a constant war on the consumer. I really wish the layperson (ie: 75%+ of voting individuals) would at least realize this so we could effect change. No wonder critical thinking isn't taught until university (if at all) and one can go through his or her whole life without a single course on formal logic, fallacies, and statistics.
Re:1993? Seagate? Samsung? Srsly? (Score:2, Interesting)
True, he isn't a former Samsung employee, but an ex-employee of someone Samsung is invested in.
None of which matters terribly much, since the real issue is not disclosing a lawsuit he was a party in, when he was instructed to do so.
Re:What's up! (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know, it is hard to see how a trial taking place down the road from Apple's headquarters against a Korean company could be all that fair when the jury clearly have a vested in interest in protecting their local economy and the US economy in general. At the very least the retrial/appeal should be moved to a more neutral location.
Re:What's up! (Score:1, Interesting)
worst case, this judgment is thrown out and there's another trial where apple wins even more money. sammy should stop while they're not too far behind!
You wish, Apple Fanboy/Fangirl!
Re:Jury wasn't the problem (Score:4, Interesting)
I said at the time that this was a huge judicial error. That she was ignoring the spirit of the law to follow the letter of the law. The reason for having filing deadlines is to prevent one side from dragging out a trial for so long that the cost of the trial exceeds any award amount, thus making justice uneconomical. But in this case the potential outcome was worth billions of dollars, while a few days extension would've cost at most a few tens of thousands. So clearly the spirit of the law would not have been violated by allowing the evidence, with perhaps a stern reprimand to Samsung's lawyers for missing the deadline. But she disallowed it, and now we're most likely gonna have to waste millions of dollars on a new trial because of her decision.
Re:What's up! (Score:2, Interesting)
Because most people on juries are blessedly free from the ravages of intelligence. I was on a personal injury jury once and could have convinced the jury to go either way, all in or nothing. It was frankly an awful feeling, especially since neither attorney asked the plaintiff the one crucial question, did you or did you not pull bales from the bottom of the stack?
Re:What's up! (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, gosh, that would be true if it weren't simply false! Samsung most definitely has said they didn't know until after the trial. In the reply that lead to this decision [groklaw.net]: "The court held only that claims of misconduct 'must be supported by proof that the evidence of misconduct was not discovered until after the verdict was returned,' which is precisely what Samsung has shown here." (Emphasis mine.)
Re:What's up! (Score:4, Interesting)
So first they had to figure out what evidence there was.
Nope. The jurors were all given opportunity to disclose any previous legal wranglings. Hogan chose to omit the Seagate one.