Court to Lawyer: Whitelist the Court Domain Name!
This isn’t the first time this has happened [link] – that a lawyer receives an electronic notice from the other side or the court and blames it on the spam filter – but the consequences here are more severe than previously imposed by other courts: Pace v. United Servs. Auto Ass'n, Case No. 05-cv-01562-LTB-MJW, D. Co., 2007 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 49425, July 9, 2007 [.pdf].
The basic facts are that the court issued a Minute Order setting a settlement conference. Plaintiff’s counsel failed to appear and the court issued a Show Cause. Defendant filed a Motion for Fees and Costs. Why did Plaintiff’s counsel fail to appear?
My take: the sanction seems excessive (even assuming
just the costs of attending the single settlement conference are allowed). The firewall software was installed on May
21, 2007 the same day the court
issued the initial Minute Order. The
court seems to go through an awful lot of trouble to prove its point (e.g.,
calling the IT administrator as a witness, examining the firewall log). The court even seemed peeved that some other
courts were whitelisted but it was not:
as of the date of this hearing on June 20, 2007, Mr. Rea still had not whitelisted this court's domain name even though he previously whitelisted the court domain names of the Colorado State Courts prior to May 21, 2007. . . . See Barracuda Spam Firewall log sheets attached to Mr. Rea's affidavit which shows e-mails from Colorado State Courts were not blocked because they were whitelisted (docket no. 137-2)
NB: reading between
the lines, not a great endorsement for the “Barracuda Spam Firewall software,”
which the hapless IT administrator happened to install at the law firm.
Also, maybe worth having a feathers-like system for fed ct.
dockets, which I’m sure some firms have – something which automatically logs in
and updates the docket from PACER.
Categories: CAN-SPAM, Spam, Miscellany, ETIQUETTE, Investigation and Enforcement
be warned, the courts do not follow the law of the internet; you must exclue the 1000 character with carriage return rule on firewall or you can block their incoming notices. Been there done that.
Reply to this
Better yet, Spam Vendors should work with IT directors to make sure the products they select won't put them in this situation. A filter with a Quarantine would have given them a second chance at not missing this. They used the B200, which doesn't have one.
Sometimes, a rush to judgment in a solution isn't the best route... And neither is stepping over dollars to save pennies.
And, for the record, I work for an anti-spam appliance vendor (espionintl.com) and my wife works for attorneys--this story hits close to home, for both of us!
Like with any product solution, a bit more research would have probably mitigated this issue. Brings to light a good thing for those in the market for such appliances to think about.
Reply to this
The sanctioned firm was Frank Azar's firm, which is a big TV ad based personal injury shop.
While strictly speaking irrelevant, the fact that this is a huge operation that can afford the sanction and has a special need to be organized since it handles so many cases may provide some context.
Reply to this
whitelisting a domain is not a real solution as spammers can easily forge the sender's domain name and then get through the filters... we're using a Barracuda Spam Firewall 600 and very happy with it -- even with agressive filtering... it stopped more than 30 million spam messages in 6 months with very few false positives (mostly due to the sender being on a public RBL)
Reply to this
Was there not also a printed copy mailed?
Did the plaintiff's firm in some way waive a written copy?
Was the court unwilling to send a hard copy?
The stories I hear about things going wrong with electronic filing make believe that paper have some definite advantages.
Reply to this