Righthaven Completely Stops Showing Up In Court, Loses Key Case, Key Appeals And 'Big Name' Lawyer Who It Still Owes Money To

from the death-of-righthaven dept

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Over the past few weeks there's been some more Righthaven news, as the company has continued the trend it started last year of not showing up and missing deadlines. Now it appears that it's just completely given up. CEO Steve Gibson is working at another job (while being investigated by the Nevada Bar) and main lawyer Shawn Mangano apparently has completely stopped responding to all attempts to contact him, even by the court. All this has resulted in the key appeals in its cases to be dismissed "for lack of prosecution." Last Thursday it also had a key case closed , with prejudice, driving another (yes another) nail in its already buried coffin.Also, you may recall that, last summer, Righthaven trumpeted the fact that it had hired famed copyright maximalist lawyer Dale Cendali to help with some of the cases -- including this key one against the Pahrump Life blog. This hiring was part of why Gibson insisted that the courts respected Righthaven (even as they were losing case after case). Cendali is considered a bigshot in some copyright circles, leading some to think that Righthaven might actually have some ability to pull out of its tailspin. However, the sum total of her contributions to Righthaven's legal fights appears to have been a ridiculous filing last summer in which she tried to compare Righthaven to patent trolls -- an argument the court later found entirely unconvincing.Cendali has now said she's withdrawn from all Righthaven cases , even though her name still appears officially as counsel for the company in one of the recently dismissed appeals. She claims that she was really just hired for couple small issues which she completed last summer (such as the filing mentioned above) and had been told that Mangano would handle the rest of the cases. She also has told the court that. Actually, other than the initial retainer, she says Righthaven't hasn't paid any other legal fees. In other words, Righthaven paid the initial retainer fee so it could blast out the fact that it hired her... and then refused to pay for any of the actual work she did. Par for the course for Righthaven.Either way, with the dismissals of the key appeals, as well as the Pahrump Life case -- which was considered a key fight -- combined with the fact that pretty much everyone involved with Righthaven seems to have moved on to other things and is flat out ignoring anything Righthaven-related, when do we finally get to call the official time of death for Righthaven?

Filed Under: copryight, dale cendali, shawn mangano, steve gibson

Companies: righthaven