Wired - A lawyer for copyright troll Righthaven is declaring under penalty of perjury that an update to his computer’s browser prohibited him from electronically submitting a legal filing before an angry judge’s deadline.
And it was no ordinary filing U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt was demanding.
Nevada’s chief judge two weeks ago ordered Righthaven, which sues bloggers and websites for infringement of Las Vegas Review-Journal articles, to explain why the litigation factory made “dishonest statements to the court.” Hunt wanted the answer by June 28, but Righthaven’s Las Vegas lawyer filed a reply a day late.
The reason it was untimely, Righthaven attorney Shawn Mangano said, was because an “automatic software update for the internet browser” on his computer caused the browser to stop working with the federal judiciary’s electronic filing system, known in legal circles as CM/ECF.
“This automatic software update caused my internet browser to be incompatible with the court’s CM/ECF electronic filing system. While the CM/ECF system was accessible to me, it did not permit any files to be attached (.pdf) for submission,” Mangano wrote the judge.
The judiciary’s filing service is generally compatible with the major browsers, including Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Chrome. Mangano did not respond for comment. More
