Arbitrator sued in Houston for allegedly presuming guilt.
One of National Arbitration Forum’s (NAF) most prolific arbitrators, The Honorable Carolyn Marks Johnson, has been sued in Houston for alleged judicial misconduct.
Judge Johnson has been an active domain dispute arbitrator with NAF. A 2001 analysis of UDRP cases (pdf) showed that, not only was she handed a disproportionate number of complaints by NAF, but she also found in favor of the complainant 97.2% of the time. Across the universe of cases at NAF, only 82.9% were found in favor of complainants at the time.
She has also decided some particularly egregious cases. She found in favor of the complainant for Freebie.com, even though the respondent owned a company called Freebie, Inc. that used the web site for a “points site” for Blockbuster Video. That decision found its way to court, where two separate courts found that the UDRP was flat out wrong. The first court decided that the UDRP was “unsupported by the evidence” and should be reversed. An appeals court agreed.
She was also the arbitrator on the recent MothersMilk.com case. She was the second arbitrator to hear what amounts to basically the same case. The first arbitrator ruled in favor of the respondent; Johnson found in favor of the complainant.
So what is she alleged to have done to find herself on the receiving end of a lawsuit? While serving as a judge in a Driving While Intoxicated case, she undertook what the defendant alleges was a “bizarre and illegal course of conduct”.
Just an upset defendant? It doesn’t appear that way. The defendant alleges that, while the jury was deliberating, Johnson opined about the need to punish the defendant and the need for the prosecutor and defendant to work out an agreement about the punishment that would be imposed on the defendant as soon as the jury reached a verdict. Johnson then allegedly ordered the defendant to take a drug test, and Johnson advised that, if found positive for illegal drugs, she would tell the jury as it was deliberating.
Keep in mind this all allegedly took place while the jury was deliberating. It then came back with its verdict: NOT guilty.
The suit alleges that the defendant was then detained against her will in order to take the drug test anyway, and makes several other claims. By the way, the drug test came back negative, too.
That one of its arbitrators is on the receiving end of such a lawsuit doesn’t look good for National Arbitration Forum, given that it was recently sued for bias by the Attorney General of Minnesota. NAF settled the case and exited the consumer arbitration business.
It’s up to the court to decide Judge Johnson’s case. After all, you’re innocent until proven guilty. Perhaps Johnson needs to apply that elusive right in both the court room and in domain arbitration cases.
Do we need more evidence to lobby getting rid of the NAF? Are ya’ll domainers not totally pissed off? Are you waiting for the other shoe to fall?
Where do you find these stories, Andrew? It’s like bizarro-world!
jorge – I’m getting fairly proficient and finding these things. Others fall in my lap.
I’ve said it many times in my comments left on domaining blogs that some of these Arbitrators are either biased, incompetent or crooked.
Thanks for the proof.
Most of these WIPO/NAF clowns are the worth scum on Earth, period
Great news piece. I’m stunned. Once again, people place their hard work, trust, and livelihood in the hands of someone presumed to be ethical and impartial.
ICANN’s day is likely coming as well. Too many justified stakeholder interests thrown under the bus by them. Injustice and wrongdoing eventually come around full circle. But it’s the damage inflicted in the meantime that is sad. Shocking news.
Now I’m wondering to what extent the WIPO have hidden skeletons. Actually, this news points to the need for re-evaluation and clarification on the UDRP process and criteria established for even being able to launch a UDRP. There should be some minimal standard which must be met. With consequences imposed as well for reverse domain hijacking.
From the book “Out of Order” by Max Boot, ISBN 0465053750, page 186 regarding Carolyn Marks Johnson:
“In a 1995 Houston Bar Association survey, she received the second-highest ‘poor’ rating among the nineteen state civil district court judges in Houston.”
There’s over 10 pages in the book devoted to her shenanigans.
SL – the very sentence before that: “It is undeniable that since her appointment, Judge Johnson has acquired a reputation among local lawyers as a plaintiff’s judge, not a fair judge.”
Hopefully they lock her up. Or at least remove her from doing any more damage to innocent people, outrageous.
🙂
The NAF is a crooked organization and it is all starting to unwind.
In a couple of years the NAF might be out of business.
I smell a RICO lawsuit/class action coming. 🙂
Furthemore: if by some miracle you should get a pitance of a judgement or “award”. It is just a worthless piece of paper. You have to try to collect and the builder has already told me they have moved the money and there is none in the acount. I have a worthless judgement if you would like to see what they look like.
I figured she would eventually get in hot water.A very large chemical company used her to supposedly settle numerous disputes within the plant I used to work for.
I was fired after twenty seven years of faithful service after I got sick after a very long illness and wound up in arbitration with an 81 year old arbitrator and he ruled for the company; how convenient can it get?
All my statements are taken from public records, the secretaty of states office, magazines,and news papers. Yet no one in Texas does anything about it. Attorney General Swanson in Minn. is the Ag I most admire. The TX AG lost file after file, even though there were 5 subdivisions of us filing them . He wrote to Senator Ellis and Rep Coleman saying we had never filed a complaint. The bad old boy network is alive and well in Texas.
Arbitration is supose to be cheaper, fairer and faster. Yet it will cost you to prepare just as it would for a trial. And the middle men from, the American Arbitration Ass. forced us to hand over $9300 dollars to their “Non Profit” agency? To facilate the hanging.
It is sad, we lost our seventh amendment rights to a trial by jury and most pople do not even know or believe it. And all the crap they fed us about this process helping lower Drs malpractice insurance, ask your Dr. I ask mine. They can get rid of you faster in arbitration in a little known proceess called, fast track. You are run down so fast you didn;’t even know you were on the train tracks. It is not fair, it is not cheaper, it is just faster.
Please go to my web site. My testimoney to the congressional committe is there: the effects of arbitration on the consumer. Then see if you still feel as safe from this diabolical process as you think. You can not join a gym, buy a house, a car, have a cell phone or even have a door installed from Lowes with out giving up your 7th amendment rights. Now they are in Nursing Home contracts. They will take your eldery mother they just will not except the responsibilty for her. So if they forget her: give her no medication, food or water and they kill her there is not one thing you can do about it.www.jordan.com
“no one in Texas does anything about it”….bingo.
Crooked goings on in Texas with the trademark lawyers, arbitration, and such.
It’s a conspiracy. I know that sounds silly, but it is true. Just connect the dots of everyone involved and where their roots lie.
The roots even goes back to Enron…..again, hard to believe but true.
These are some crooked mofos !
I’ve just stubled upon this site holdenhistory.com, could I just borrow the technical
data from the site or do I need some kind of permission?. I am writing a school project.
Olivia