One of the more heavily reported pieces of civil litigation in the U.S. District Court, D. Minn., by Minnesota Litigator has been the lawsuit brought by Lyle Berman and Lakes Entertainment against the famed securities fraud class action litigation firm Milberg L.L.P., Bill Lerach, and others (see entries here).
To recap: Berman and Lakes Entertainment were defendants in securities fraud class actions headed up by Milberg predecessor Milberg Weiss Bershad Hynes & Lerach “back in the day” and, since it was later discovered that Milberg was making illegal secret payments to its damages expert, Berman and Lakes brought suit, originally for fraud, conspiracy, negligent supervision and RICO. (A challenging aspect of the case for the plaintiffs was that they did not wish to “undo” the settlements of the underlying securities fraud class action lawsuits so it is not so clear how they were damaged by the plaintiffs’ admitted wrong-doing.)
The lawsuit was not very well received. U.S. District Court Judge Joan Ericksen dismissed it with leave to amend and then dismissed it again with prejudice when it was amended and refiled. But it ain’t over yet…
As covered previously, in the eleventh hour, Berman and Lakes Entertainment sought to deter the second dismissal of their complaint with newly recovered evidence, something in the nature of a “jailhouse confession” (except disgraced convicted perjurer felon Paul Torkelson apparently wants to implicate other experts as having been “on the take” with Milberg rather than redeeming himself or seeking repentence.)
The eleventh hour’s come and gone however; Berman and Lakes’ late discovery got them nowhere. Now, they are seeking to alter the judgment against their case (the twelfth hour?). Their brief is here. Milberg’s response is here.