Judge Albright Imposes Sanctions for “Baseless” Claims in Motion for New Trial

On December 17, 2021, Judge Albright imposed sanctions on the plaintiff’s counsel who signed the motion for a new trial filed after a jury verdict for the defense in Freshhub, Inc. v. Amazon.com, Inc. In the motion, the plaintiff, for the first time, alleged defense counsel “played on the stereotype of greedy Jewish executives of an Israeli company allegedly taking advantage of U.S. companies, to trigger religious biases and deepen the ‘us vs. them’ nationalistic divide in the minds of the jurors.” In doing so, plaintiff “essentially accuse[d] the Court of turning a blind eye to Defendants’ highly prejudicial ‘arguments along the national and religious lines.’” The Court noted that it “did not turn a blind eye to any racist or anti-Semitic conduct, because indeed there was none.” The Court found that plaintiff’s “inflammatory allegations [were] nothing but baseless attacks on the integrity of this Court and the reputation of Defendants’ counsel” and ordered plaintiff’s counsel to complete 30 hours of CLE on legal ethics.