Today, Judge Yerger decided to state Eaton v. Frisby while he dealt with the impact of behind-the-scenes contact between Ed Peters and Judge DeLaughter.
Eaton has been the subject of a whole series of posts (read here, in reverse order). It’s a case that was before Judge DeLaughter involving alleged theft of trade secrets. The original lawyer for Eaton, Mike Allred, made a contract to pay a fact witness and then did not disclose it in discovery. Through a long series of not-entirely-visible proceedings (the case is largely under seal), Frisby found out about the contract and then sought sanctions. There were very baroque proceedings involving side litigation about sanctions for this violation of both the law and the discovery rules, much before a special master, the upshot being that someone on the Eaton side secretly hired Peters to try to work his magic with DeLaughter. This surfaced because Peters accidently sent an email to a secretary at the law firm representing Frisby.
This is one of the cases the Judicial Performance Committee cited in having DeLaughter suspended from the bench.
So today was one in a series of hearings about what to do with that. Jimmie Gates reports in the Clarion Ledger:
Alan Perry, one of Frisby’s attorneys, argued today that the lawsuit should be stayed because of former Hinds County District Attorney Ed Peters’ alleged attempt to corrupt the court and that a federal criminal case against the engineers have hampered the defense.
“We have been done wrong and we are asking for justice,” Perry told Hinds County Circuit Judge Swan Yerger. …
Yerger eventually ruled today that actions in the Eaton Corp.’s lawsuit should be halted until it could be determined what role, if any, Peters, a former Eaton attorney, had on DeLaughter’s decisions.
