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Apple versus Samsung jury foreman mislead the court

by on04 October 2012



Samsung appeal makes case look like mistrial


It is starting to look like the Apple versus Samsung trail might have to be redone as the jury foreman may have mislead his fellows. The Judge overseeing the appeal has allowed Samsung's appeal papers to be made public, something the company did not want to do.

It turns out that one of the reasons Samsung wants the case thrown out is because of the jury foreman, Velvin Hogan. It calls Hogan untruthful and accuse him of "implied bias" and of tainting the process by introducing extraneous "evidence" of his own during jury deliberations.

Before the case Hogan promised that he would not be influenced by previous cases. But Hogan was asked during jury selection whether he’d been involved in lawsuits and didn’t tell the judge that he had filed for bankruptcy in 1993 and had been sued by his former employer, Seagate Technology in 1993. He later told the media that he had used his own patent trademark case as a way of sifting through the evidence quickly.

But Samsung points out that what might have influenced Hogan's behaviour was case he had with Seagate. Not only did Samsung has a “substantial strategic relationship” with Seagate, but the lawyer who filed the complaint against Hogan is married to an attorney who works for the firm that represented Samsung in the trial against Apple. This explains why Samsung wanted its appeal details kept secret from the world. Basically it is accusing Hogan of lying his way onto the jury and getting revenge against his former employers by manipulating a jury to award major damages against one of its important business partners.

Samsung said that if Hogan had revealed his Seagate connection in the pre-jury questioning he would have been barred from being on the jury. It also said that once on the Jury Hogan broke his promise to ignore his previous legal experience. Indeed he even bragged about it to the media.

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