The saga continues.
Apparently, the plaintiffs in a letter requested Judge Peck to recuse himself in the Da Silva Moore v. Publicis Groupe case after filing objections to the magistrate's order regarding predictive coding.
For a copy of the judge's initial ruling and plaintiffs' personal and legal objections to the ruling go to LawCLECenter (www.lawclecenter.com) and register as a member (it's free) and then go to the "resources" page and download the Da Silva documents including the recent order.
In response to the Letter for Recusal the Court ordered plaintiffs to make a decision whether the letter requesting recusal should be considered a "motion" to recuse.
The Court stated,
"The Court is in receipt of plaintiffs' March 28, 2012 letter requesting my recusal. Plaintiffs shall advise as to whether they wish to file a formal motion or for the Court to consider the letter as the motion (in which case defendants will have 14 days to respond, from the date of plaintiffs' confirmation that the letter constitutes their motion).
The Court notes that my favorable view of computer assisted review technology in general was well known to plaintiffs before I made any ruling in this case, and I have never endorsed Recommind's methodology or technology, nor received any reimbursement from Recommind for appearing at any conference that (apparently) they and other vendors sponsored, such as Legal Tech. I have had no discussions with Mr. Losey about this case, nor was I aware that he is working on the case.
It appears that after plaintiffs' counsel and vendor represented to me that they agreed to the use of predictive coding, plaintiffs now claim that my public statements approving generally of computer assisted review make me biased. If plaintiffs were to prevail, it would serve to discourage judges (and for that matter attorneys) from speaking on educational panels about ediscovery (or any other subject for that matter). The Court suspects this will fall on deaf ears, but I strongly suggest that plaintiffs rethink their "scorched earth" approach to this litigation. SO ORDERED. Dated: April 2, 2012."
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