The case was in federal court. Michael Cukor is listed as Feng Tao's counsel. His bio states "Michael has lead counsel experience in Federal Courts across the country including the District of New Jersey, Northern District of California, the Eastern District of Texas and the District of Delaware." He doesn't list Southern District of New York, but it would be up to the judge there. His partner Vincent McGeary "has lead [sic] large litigation teams in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, the Eastern District of Texas, the Northern District of California, the District of Delaware, and the District of New Jersey." I think Feng Tao had pretty impressive legal counsel.
JeffDavis
Uh no - it's not up to the judge as to whether you can represent your client or not as lead counsel if you're licensed to practice law in that state and there's no conflict of interest involving another party in the litigation. There's also more than one judge in the Southern District as it's part of a federal court system that comprises eight counties. If Cukor hasn't listed the Southern District among his lead counsel experience (which doesn't include any NY federal court districts), it simply means he doesn't have it. McGeary has, though. The real question isn't how many district courts they've represented clients in, but did their "large litigation teams" win their lawsuits?
They worked with what they had, but a default judgment was always going to be the end result as the defendants were never going to appear in federal court, and claiming the plaintiffs hadn't suffered irreparable harm not only wasn't going to fly, but implies that Feng Tao would keep on racking up future violations, which tends to tip things in the plaintiff's behalf when it comes to the court issuing permanent injunctions.
Citing insufficient service here nothing more than a delaying tactic and not one they were ever going to win on. It's considered a "technical defense" because it doesn't actually offer a defense as to the complaint itself, but it's actually a crucial element of due process. The filing of a complaint by the plaintiff stops the statute of limitations from running, but the lawsuit can't proceed until service of process has properly been made on the defendant - only when they've been properly served so they're aware they're now the defendant in a lawsuit does the court get jurisdiction over them to impose an (enforceable) judgment of liability - and in this case - damages. If the plaintiff fails to serve the defendant properly, the lawsuit is dismissed because the court has no jurisdiction - but it's dismissed without prejudice, which means it can be filed again
as long as the statute of limitations hasn't expired. Once the plaintiff is informed there's a problem with service, it's their responsibility to correct it, or to show due diligence as to why it can't be corrected - in this case, AACCSLA claimed that their investigators couldn't uncover Feng Tao's physical address in order to serve him, which is why they had to resort to serving him via email. At the end of the day, the fact that Feng Tao was represented by counsel that was arguing he'd been improperly served because the plaintiff hadn't gone through The Hague Convention demonstrated that he did, in fact, have knowledge that he'd been served, which is why the motion was ultimately denied.
