Jury Misconduct in the Samsung V Apple case

[WelshBloke]

Not sure if I was just called an asshat..

Lol, not you. The asshat juror.

 

[Mopetar]

Whatever you say bro. Here are 2 sources, both of which are not from a biased and misleading like groklaw.

Wouldn't call groklaw misleading. They have their own slant (generally pro-foss) but I don't know if I'd go so far as to call them biased. Also, Florian has a whole slant of his own, and may have some bias as he's done (or may still be doing) consulting work for companies (Oracle most notable, and I think there was some mention that he might also consult for Microsoft) that might benefit from Android's legal woes.

Don't know if the other article's author has any particular biases. It would seem that she mostly just writes opinion pieces on various legal opinions or proceedings. However, cherry-picking one, essentially random legal opinion isn't bullet-proof support for your arguments. Neither is simply claiming that they're unbiased while dismissing any dissenting points.

 

[Timorous]

The issue is that all of these factors when combined show that there is some serious doubt as to whether this juror was impartial.

He was sued by Seagate and that forced him into bankruptcy. That is a major event which nobody would forget. Samsung now own part of Seagate so hurting Samsung would hurt Seagate in some small way. I doubt that Mr Hogan was thinking this but you cannot discount the possibility.

Further the lawyer who represented Seagate is married to a partner and the lawfirm representing Samsung. Again hurting the lawfirms reputation by swaying the jury to rule in favour of Apple would hurt in a very small way the person who caused him to go into bankruptcy. Again I do not think that this is the case but you cannot discount the possibility.

On top of that you have the statements that Mr Hogan has made that show he did not follow the instructions given to the jury. This is especially evident when he talk about prior art and his AHA moment. The rules around what counts as prior art were part of those jury instructions and the reasoning given by Mr Hogan as to why they discounted the prior art is not valid. The line of thought he used is not a valid reason to discount the prior art because the prior art could be described in great detail on paper and still be valid and that is not 'interchangeable' with the the iPhone.

I do not think he lied to the court because he gave a truthful answer and provided an example. If the court wanted to know if there had been any more litigation they should have asked a follow up but they did not. Either they did not want this information or the court made a mistake.

Ultimately though you have a situation where there is a potential conflict of interest for this juror and he failed to follow the instructions provided by the judge. Whether that is enough for a mistrial I do not know but it does give the judge something to think about.

 

[TuxDave]

The issue is that all of these factors when combined show that there is some serious doubt as to whether this juror was impartial.

He was sued by Seagate and that forced him into bankruptcy. That is a major event which nobody would forget. Samsung now own part of Seagate so hurting Samsung would hurt Seagate in some small way. I doubt that Mr Hogan was thinking this but you cannot discount the possibility.

Further the lawyer who represented Seagate is married to a partner and the lawfirm representing Samsung. Again hurting the lawfirms reputation by swaying the jury to rule in favour of Apple would hurt in a very small way the person who caused him to go into bankruptcy. Again I do not think that this is the case but you cannot discount the possibility.

Yes the possibility is non-zero. But again I think going after Samsung to get after Seagate is in the tin foil hat category. As is going after Samsung to make the lawyer look bad to exact revenge on the lawyer's spouse. It's almost as bad as the theory that Samsung lawyers knew he was lying and was going to hold it as a trump card for later in case they lose. We need much more tin foil at this rate. It's all technically non-zero possibility. May as well toss in the idea that Samsung WANTED to lose and appeal so that they get more advertisement.

And.... I'll just leave this here (it happens in elections and apparantly electronics)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polarization_(psychology)

 

[cl-scott]

Whatever you say bro. Here are 2 sources, both of which are not from a biased and misleading like groklaw.

Comments like this really don't help your case. If you want to say Groklaw is biased and misleading, let's see some evidence of bias and misleading statements. Just because other places phrased things in a way more pleasing to you is not the same thing.

As for his CL-scotts post here you go:


I am guessing he is referring to 1 of 2 things.

1. The quote from one of the jurors saying 'they skipped all prior art completely'. They never skipped prior art. They were stuck on the bounce back and pinch to zoom patents and couldnt come to a conclusion on those. So they skipped them, went thru the patents where they came to a unanimous decision, then went back to those patents and prior art and discussed them after coming to a unanimous decision on all the other issues.

2. The quote from the foreman on the damages:
"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."

They based the damages off of Samsungs own numbers. Not apples. They just upped the damages a little more than 12% margin.
People are saying he wanted to punish Samsung with the damages. He said it should not be too low and it should not be too high. Apple asked for 2.75 billion. They awarded Apple $1 billion. If he wanted to 'punish' Samsung then why did the jury use Samsungs' numbers and not Apples?

I'm just assuming that first part is some kind of typo, and not a tinfoil hat brigade theory that I am posting under multiple accounts here.

In any event, as I've already stated... The guy pretty clearly disregarded the judge's instructions, claimed that he had made up his mind before the trial was over -- yes, probably every juror does this, but most aren't stupid enough to go announce it to the world -- and then there is the fact that he basically perjured himself in the process of being selected for the jury. Whether or not it was some kind of plot to try and get back at Seagate through Samsung really doesn't matter. He was asked if he'd ever been involved in a lawsuit before, he said no, there is irrefutable proof of this being a false statement. So if he was under oath at the time, and doing a quick googling of voire-dire would confirm that they are, that is perjury plain and simple. If you have a juror that perjured themselves, that sounds like great grounds for granting a new trial if there ever was one. The fact that he was also the jury foreman, and is self-admitted as having been very influential in the outcome, only strengthens the case for Samsung having been denied a fair trial. Even if it wasn't perjury, it would still stand that the guy gave false and/or misleading answers to questions during the jury selection process, and then one has to question the motivations for doing so. Suddenly the getting back at Seagate idea moves slightly closer to being a credible theory.

So I would again say that as a result of this, the verdict should be vacated and the case should be heard again in front of a new judge and jury, in a different district. Maybe Samsung will lose a second time, maybe they won't.

None of it really changes the fact that Apple's increased legal aggression has come about rather coincidentally with competitors finally starting to eat into their market share. The iPhone is fundamentally unchanged since the first one was released some years back. Apple had one of it's almost trademark flashes of brilliance, and the original iPhone was indeed heads and shoulders above everything else out at the time. The problem is that Apple followed it up with another of its trademark moves: Just resting on that good idea and milking it for everything they possibly can. In the meantime its competitors weren't sitting still, they were doing exactly what they should be doing under the philosophies of capitalism. They were taking notes about what Apple was doing right and they were doing wrong, and adjusting their products accordingly. If Apple were this highly innovative company, as it likes to claim, then the competition should be perpetually chasing its taillights.

It's not a coincidence that if you look at Apple's global legal strategy, the areas where they have the most aggressive legal activities are the markets where they have the lowest market penetration. These lawsuits are not about protecting patents, it's about using the legal system to hobble the competition. And to be fair, they're in very good company with virtually every other company in the cell phone market, and plenty of other markets, doing exactly the same thing. That in no way means that Apple is somehow excused responsibility for their actions, it just means that plenty of other companies deserve the same beating.

And none of that has anything to do with the fact that Samsung was very clearly denied a fair trial. That is quite possibly the single most fundamental underpinning of our legal system: Everyone is entitled to a fair trial. So unless you're advocating for a legal system where fairness is not of the utmost concern, then there shouldn't be any problem in saying that Samsung deserves a new trial. Do take note that this isn't the same as commenting on Apple's case. If it's as strong as they claim, then they should have no problem winning their case a second time in another district with a new judge and jury.

 

[styrafoam]

So a bunch of previously sealed documents in the trial were unsealed and are up on Groklaw now. Among them are details on the foreman's bankruptcy, which it seems was done to keep a second home while not repaying a loan made by seagate to said foreman. This is of course groklaw's take on it after sifting through the docs, but it also makes it seem even a little less likely that he was out for revenge. He bent seagate over once already, and how would harming samsung actually have a negative effect on seagate? The connection may be enough to have a juror preemptively dismissed, but i doubt he was out for some sort of revenge.

It also seems that the internal samsung proof was from someones notes on a managers meeting which was translated to english. The syntax is all over the place, and it makes it a little hard to tell what some of the actual intent of the statements were. The "lets make something like the iphone" quote was the head of Samsung's mobile division paraphrasing the displeasure of the mobile carriers who wanted something comparable to the iphone out of samsung.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20121004050859829

 

[chewietobbacca]

Yeah, apparently Samsung's lawyers were just incompetent. The quote Apple used was taken so out of context that it would make politicians blush

Newly released documents suggest Samsung might not be an Apple copycat after all - Yahoo! News

Apple’s attorneys used a Samsung internal memo as proof the company blatantly copied the iPhone. Within the memo, Samsung mobile boss JK Shin expressed outrage at how far his company’s user experience had fallen behind Apple’s, noting the difference “is truly that of Heaven and Earth” and Samsung was suffering from a “crisis of design.” Apple revealed that Shin told his designers to “make something like the iPhone,” although the company left out key parts of the quote.

In the internal document, the executive said, “let’s make something like the iPhone. When everybody (both consumers and the industry) talk about UX, they weigh it against the iPhone. The iPhone has become the standard. That’s how things are already.”

Not once does the executive suggest that Samsung should copy the iPhone, but instead be creative and focus on comfort and ease of use.

Hey when you can't innovate... litigate!

 

[cl-scott]

Yeah, apparently Samsung's lawyers were just incompetent. The quote Apple used was taken so out of context that it would make politicians blush

Newly released documents suggest Samsung might not be an Apple copycat after all - Yahoo! News



Hey when you can't innovate... litigate!

Oh great, now you've just consigned Yahoo and Cnet to the biased liberal media or whatever media cabal is supposed to have some kind of anti-Apple bias. Not that Yahoo or Cnet would be a huge loss, but it's the principle of the thing. Because surely when you make biased comments about some other media outlet being biased, people should take you seriously.

That being said, I know it's the job of the lawyer to basically lie, cheat, and steal in order to get a win for your client, but the more the evidence comes out, it does look like kind of the perfect storm of jury misconduct and crap lawyers that hit Samsung.

And on a bit of a rant... I recognize that lawyers are kind of a necessary evil of society, but these kinds of stunts really should be grounds for some kind of professional censure. Blatantly misrepresenting evidence, never mind that it might not technically be illegal, is certainly unprofessional and unbecoming to the profession as a whole. This is the sort of thing that SHOULD see a lawyer hauled in front of the state bar association and issued some kind of professional sanction. Maybe a fine, temporary suspension of their license, even disbarring them. If you have to resort to these kinds of stunts to win your case, then maybe you don't deserve to win. Lawyers should be given the same oath witnesses are expected to take at the start of every trial. More than that, since lawyers should know better than anyone what is and isn't perjury, they should get the maximum penalty automatically for basically thumbing their nose at the system.

 

[TuxDave]

Oh great, now you've just consigned Yahoo and Cnet to the biased liberal media or whatever media cabal is supposed to have some kind of anti-Apple bias. Not that Yahoo or Cnet would be a huge loss, but it's the principle of the thing. Because surely when you make biased comments about some other media outlet being biased, people should take you seriously.

That being said, I know it's the job of the lawyer to basically lie, cheat, and steal in order to get a win for your client, but the more the evidence comes out, it does look like kind of the perfect storm of jury misconduct and crap lawyers that hit Samsung.

And on a bit of a rant... I recognize that lawyers are kind of a necessary evil of society, but these kinds of stunts really should be grounds for some kind of professional censure. Blatantly misrepresenting evidence, never mind that it might not technically be illegal, is certainly unprofessional and unbecoming to the profession as a whole. This is the sort of thing that SHOULD see a lawyer hauled in front of the state bar association and issued some kind of professional sanction. Maybe a fine, temporary suspension of their license, even disbarring them. If you have to resort to these kinds of stunts to win your case, then maybe you don't deserve to win. Lawyers should be given the same oath witnesses are expected to take at the start of every trial. More than that, since lawyers should know better than anyone what is and isn't perjury, they should get the maximum penalty automatically for basically thumbing their nose at the system.

Woah there. Even outside of court, don't you ever see an argument of semantics? I bet the Packers will crush the Giants. (and if the Packers beat the Giants by 1 TD), did I win the bet? Is 1TD enough to satisfy "crush"? Should my bet be taken literally and the NY Giants need to literally get crushed? /argue argue argue... No one is really lying, they're just trying to win.

Stuff like this is why I'd probably end up in jail if ever accused of something. I'd end up saying stuff like "I know I said THAT but I really meant this and not that even though that's what I said. Come on, you KNOW what I REALLY meant right?"

 

[cl-scott]

Woah there. Even outside of court, don't you ever see an argument of semantics? I bet the Packers will crush the Giants. (and if the Packers beat the Giants by 1 TD), did I win the bet? Is 1TD enough to satisfy "crush"? Should my bet be taken literally and the NY Giants need to literally get crushed? /argue argue argue... No one is really lying, they're just trying to win.

Stuff like this is why I'd probably end up in jail if ever accused of something. I'd end up saying stuff like "I know I said THAT but I really meant this and not that even though that's what I said. Come on, you KNOW what I REALLY meant right?"

Semantics is hardly the same as knowingly misrepresenting something someone else said. Not to mention it is not like someone is making that misrepresentation in a court of law.

I'm also limiting it specifically to lawyers. Well, I'd also include politicians now that I think of it. But in this case you have a Samsung memo which basically says let's use the iPhone as a benchmark by which to judge our own products. That is a far cry from Apple's representation of it, that it is claiming Samsung was setting out with the clear intent of copying the iPhone.

A lawyer should, IMO, be held to a much higher ethical standard because of the potential influence they have over the lives of other people. Lawyers, judges, police, and politicians, IMO, should all be held to the absolute highest of ethical standards... At least while on the clock. They aren't automatons, and are allowed a personal life, but if a lawyer is arguing a case in court, they should be held to the absolute highest of ethical standards. Same as a police officer while on the job, and thus has the ability to deprive someone of their freedoms. Same as a politician who is supposed to be acting in the interests of the people s/he is representing. And finally judges, who are charged with ensuring that trials are fair and the rules are followed.