How Do You Like Us in Bold?

Having been dismissed once back in February 2006, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel (N.D. Cal.) (pictured) gave Plaintiffs in the iPass securities class action another chance. So what did they do? Well, I’m not sure what might have gone wrong, but Judge Patel says “Plaintiffs have merely changed the typeface in their amended complaint.” Is this really for real? Really? Wow, I couldn't see the true falsity before, but now that I read it in 14 point Bolded Palatino Linotype, it's so clear. I'm going to deny the individual defendants' motions to dismiss in full, and suggest to counsel that if they'd gone all out with the BlackAdder ITC fully-loaded 16 point, I'd have even kept those nasty auditors in this thing. But guess what? It didn’t work. I mean it really didn’t work.

In all fairness, it seems there were other changes to the second amended complaint, but they did about as much good as the ill-fated font switch (or whatever the actual typeface change actually was), with Judge Patel topping it all off by noting that Plaintiffs “failure to meet their pleading burden despite the Court's Order having laid out a clear blueprint for doing so suggests that amendment would be futile.”

Result? Dismissed with prejudice.

You can read In re iPass, issued September 6, 2006, at 2006 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 63654.

Nugget: “If anything, sale to repay a loan is more probative of good faith than bad, as it provides a reason for the sale wholly independent of future business difficulties.”