After my “Dallas Buyers Club, LLC is a modern-day Icarus Story (TXSD)” article on August 13th, I called Keith Vogt, the plaintiff attorney for Dallas Buyers Club. In our call, I ascertained his motivations regarding how he plans to approach Judge Hughes here in Texas, and what he plans to do with the other cases (duck and run, or push forward).
As I suspected, he expressed no “duck and run” mentality (not even privately), as we have seen in similar past cases with other past “copyright troll” plaintiff attorneys. In fact, Vogt appeared to be undeterred considering the outcome of the case, mentioning that he has NINE (9) other cases alive and well in the Southern District of Texas, seven of which were in their INFANT STAGES and all current cases are assigned to judges other than Judge Hughes.
Below is a list of those new cases:
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02119)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02120)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02121)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02124)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02217)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02219)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-25 (Case No. 4:14-cv-02220)
and of course, the two older cases:
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-31 (Case No. 4:14-cv-00248)
Dallas Buyers Club, LLC v. John Does 1-45 (Case No. 4:14-cv-00815)
Each of the newer cases were filed on either 7/24 or 8/2 (before Vogt’s problems with Judge Hughes surfaced). I have been watching these cases, and the judges in most of them have granted permission for Dallas Buyers Club, LLC to send subpoenas to the ISPs to ascertain the identities of the John Doe Defendants. These people will be receiving letters from their Comcast Xfinity Subpoena departments in the coming days and weeks.
Two interesting items to note: Plaintiff attorney Vogt has roughly 175 potential defendants, each of whom will likely be asked for a settlement of thousands of dollars. He has also not filed any new cases since the August 13th debacle with Judge Hughes, likely understanding that they will be assigned over to him, and this may or may not be a fight he wants to instigate just yet.
On a more concerning note, on Thursday, Vogt named and served eight (8) John Doe Defendants in his 4:14-cv-00815 case. This is one of his older cases, and I understand that he needed to do so because Judge Gray Miller was pressuring him to do so before the upcoming hearing. Instead of posting the names of the named and served defendants, I have pasted a screenshot of the docket which lists the named defendants — you can see the named defendants referenced below in Documents 21 & 22.
In sum, on August 13th, I commented to a friend that I did not think the judges in Texas spoke to each other. I am still of the opinion that federal court judges appear to lord over their court as if their court is their own sovereign territory. It would be nice if one judge poked his head into another courtroom once in a while. If he or she did, they would notice that the proper answer to cases such as these is CONSOLIDATION.
In a perfect world, Judge Hughes would consolidate all of the Dallas Buyers Club, LLC cases into one case, since all of the cases relate to the same common questions of fact. Doing this would prevent contrary rulings from neighboring judges, and it would create a common rule of how to handle, facilitate, and ideally to dispense with all forms of “copyright trolling” cases in the federal courts.
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