In a dramatic development, the Southern District U.S. Attorney’s office moved yesterday to dismiss all criminal charges arising out of the Eaton v. Frisby case. The Government moved to dismiss with prejudice, which the court did, and which means the criminal case is ended and will never be pursued again.
The motion and order do not explain why this happened. I’ve been reading the docket lately. The case had been stayed for a couple of years while the civil cases were being resolved; the stay had been lifted and the court had set a trial for the fall.
In January, the Government had moved to lift the stay, noting that the defendants had met with both the local US Attorneys office and Justice Department officials in Washington to attempt to persuade the Government to drop the charges, and that both local and Washington officials had declined to do so. This made the (at least on the record) sudden decision to drop the charges all the more remarkable.
To refresh folks recollection, the criminal case resulted after Eaton had convinced the Justice Department to bring a theft of trade secrets prosecution against former Eaton engineers who had gone to work for Frisby.
Because I thought some explanation was needed that would take a fair amount of time, I had been holding material for a post about the Eaton cases because of a couple of recent developments– the Fall trial setting in the criminal cases, and, most particularly, another sanction-related order out of the Hinds County circuit court based on the fact that Eaton still is having trouble coming clean with the court! Phillip Thomas of Mississippi Litigation Review had written about the order:
The article covers Hinds Circuit Judge Jeff Weills’ Order requiring multiple Eaton employees—including CEO Alexander Cutler—to explain why Eaton did not previously produce emails from Ed Peters that discussed his communications with Judge Bobby DeLaughter about the case.
You can read more and read the order at Thomas’s blog.
I suppose I should note that Eaton and its minions are still asserting they have never done anything wrong, and that the dismissal of the criminal charges is an injustice. These protestations have gone rather frayed at the edges, at best.
Here’s the Government motion to lift the stay and here’s the order of dismissal that was entered yesterday.
If they haven’t been filed yet, the malicious prosecution cases against Eaton by the individual former employees can’t be far off. Between legal fees, settlements, judgments, etc., there is no telling how much money will change hands before the entire matter is resolved.
How about abuse of process? The way Eaton and is minions went at getting those criminal charges ginned up while they were paying witnesses & etc., I am having trouble believing that the charges were kept sufficiently disentangled from the goals in the civil litigation. And with abuse of process, no worries about having to prove there was no basis for the prosecution.
I thought Weill’s order was very good. He obviously spent a lot of time thinking about it. It is also interesting that Judge Weill’s order (May 10)required very specific affidavits within 7 days of the date of the order. I have not seen any indication of whether those have been filed.
As of Tuesday last week, the fact of an indictment does not suffice for summary judgment against a malicious-prosecution claim.
Perhaps the dismissal will clear the way for indictments of Eaton employees, Eaton lawyers, or God forbid, Ed Peters or Bobby Delaughter. Unless, of course, the fix is in…..
I have spent a fair amount of time looking at MS law. There are enough poorly written MSSC opinions to totally confuse the distinction between abuse of process and malicious prosecution. I think the latter better applies.
2 Eaton in house lawyers fired.
Abajournal.com
Should be interesting to see what was in the wit held documents which resulted in the latest sanctions for Eaton and the firing of the lawyers. In the meantime, maybe the Court will rule on the appeal of The dismissal of Eaton’s claims.
See the following post in yesterday’s Cleveland Plain Dealer.
http://www.cleveland.com/business/index.ssf/2012/05/eaton_chief_executive_says_com
Thanks, Ben & Bayrat. So Leo & O’Flaherty, mentioned in the Plain Dealer story, are now seeking other work.
The sad thing is, they’ll be in-house counsel somewhere else in a few weeks.
That’s right Anderson, I bet eaton gave them a nice soft landing, just to keep them friendly.
One would hope that the Circuit Court Hinds County finds that Eaton’s suggestions as to its punishment be a good start rather than the end of the story, lest Rule 11 MRCP and the Lawsuit Accountability Act loose their sting. And what of the pending appeal to the MSSC and the 2 pending civil actions in federal court in Jackson and North Carolina?
Fining a corporation like Eaton a few million dollars will do nothing to discourage similar behavior in the future. After all, the last fine of $1.5M didn’t seem to straighten them out. They seem to be slow learners, bless their hearts.
[...] it gets worse for Eaton. As NMC reports, the Justice Department dismissed all criminal charges against the former Eaton (and now [...]
The longer eaton waits, the worse its gonna be.