Hennepin County District Court Judge
Tanya M. Bransford
Remember Guava LLC v. Merkel? A collusive Prenda’s lawsuit filed in Hennepin County court in Minneapolis? I thought that this lawsuit was over, and I was gladly surprised to learn (hat tip to Jason Sweet) that yesterday Judge Tanya M. Bransford ordered Prenda parties (Guava LLC, Michael Dugas and Paul Hansmeier’s Alpha Law Firm) to jointly and severally pay $63,367.02 in attorney fees.
What we have at this moment is the order only, a detailed memorandum is yet to come. I will update this post when it is up.
The last paragraph in this order is worth mentioning: it preemptively kills any Prenda’s trolling lawsuit in Minnesota’s Hennepin County (if the gang dares to return to trolling, which is highly unlikely).
Plaintiff Guava LLC, Michael K. Dugas, Esq., Alpha Law Firm LLC and any of their agents, officers, directors, employees, representatives, affiliates, and successors, are hereby enjoined from filing any future civil action against the John Does or the ISPs, without first posting a bond with the Court in the amount of $10,000, or such other amount as the Court deems appropriate, and without first obtaining a certificate of authority from the Minnesota Secretary of State.
Kudos to the judge: unlike Illinois’ Cook County’s Judge Sanjay Taylor, who knew that a similar Guava lawsuit was a fraud but cowardly allowed it to be dismissed and forgotten, Judge Bransford made sure that justice was served.
Media coverage
- TechDirt: Team Prenda Ordered To Pay Yet Another $64k In Yet Another Case by Mike Masnick.
- TorrentFreak: Prenda Suffers More Fee Award Blows by Ben Jones.
- ArsTechnica: Lawsuit with alleged collusion will cost Prenda Law another $64k by Joe Mullin.
Filed under: Guava/Lightspeed, Prenda
