“North Carolina Man Challenges Judge’s Decision for Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest” —
- “The Wake County Superior Court will hear arguments Friday and decide if an order from one of its judges should be set aside because he did not disclose his conflicts of interest.”
Plaintiff T. Craig Travis is asking the court to consider setting aside Special Superior Court Judge Hoyt G. Tessener’s April order dismissing his defamation suit.” - “Travis claimed Tessener did not tell the court or either party of his professional association with politicians U.S. Rep. Tim Moore and state Sen. Phil Berger Sr. Travis alleged that Tessener could not be neutral because of this professional relationship, as both men have had longstanding political influence in North Carolina and were heavily associated with one of the defendant political organizations, GOPAC.”
- “Moore, the former speaker of the state’s House of Representatives, is now a representative for North Carolina’s 14th District in the U.S. House of Representatives, and Berger has been president pro tempore of the North Carolina Senate since 2011 and is the father of another defendant.””
“Fla. Panel Affirms Atty Conflict DQ In Construction Dispute” —
- “In a one-word opinion, Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal affirmed a trial court’s decision to disqualify a plaintiff’s attorney in a long-running construction ownership dispute after finding he briefly represented the defendant’s surety company in a related matter.”
- “A three-judge panel on Wednesday upheld a February 2024 disqualification order handed down by the state’s Eleventh Judicial Circuit in Miami-Dade County. The lower court found that Timothy Taylor’s role as representative for Craft Construction Company LLC’s surety company, Berkley Surety, represented an irreconcilable conflict that must lead to his removal as plaintiffs counsel for his client, Taras S. Diakiwski, in the business dispute.”
- “In its order to disqualify, the trial court noted a ‘long-standing relationship’ between Taylor and Diakiwski and the ‘great expense and inconvenience’ the plaintiff would face due to the disqualification, but found it was necessary given Taylor’s access to privileged information about Craft Construction.”
- “Represented by Taylor, Diakiwski sued Craft Construction and its founder, Barry Craft, in December 2015 alleging breach of contract and other violations, and seeking disgorgement of alleged profits he said he was owed through their partnership.”
- “Given that the surety company holds eight years of confidential Craft Construction information, the Craft parties argued, Taylor must be disqualified.”
- “In response, Diakiwski argued that the Craft parties had not shown what privileged information, if any, Berkley had provided to Taylor about Craft Construction that could be used in the matter. Diakiwski pointed out that Craft itself had never been Taylor’s client, and no attorney-client relationship existed.”
- “Craft, in turn, argued that due to Taylor’s conflict of interest, it was not necessary for the court to find proof that privileged information was shared with the lawyer.”
“The trial court found that the Boca project matter for which Taylor represented Berkley was substantially related to Diakiwski’s case against the Craft parties, which the court referred to as ‘CCC.’” - “‘CCC disputes plaintiff’s allegation of the profitability of the Boca project,’ the trial court said in its disqualification order. ‘In this case, plaintiff seeks to disgorge millions of dollars allegedly realized as CCC’s purported profits from the Boca project.’”
- “The court further found that alleged mismanagement of the Boca project was directly at issue in Diakiwski’s case, because the contractor had alleged that the Craft parties were in over their heads without him and unable to take on such a large project. Information about Craft Construction’s value and financial exposure were also key elements of Diakiwski’s case, the court further ruled.”
- “The court stated that while Taylor ‘did not appear to consider the consequences in his representation of Mr. Diakiwski in this case related to the Boca project where the interests are clearly adverse,’ it was not his intent, but the outcome, that the court must weigh, later noting: ‘There is no document that can simply be excluded from trial. This court cannot instruct Mr. Taylor to unknow what he has learned.’”
“Skadden’s New Pro Bono Case Runs Counter to Trump on Immigration” —
- “Skadden, after cutting a deal with President Donald Trump to take on causes he supports, is moving in the opposite direction by helping an immigrant try to avoid removal from the US.”
- “Skadden lawyers are representing a 38-year-old woman from Mexico who sued US Citizenship and Immigration Services on May 23 for denying her a visa for crime victims that would allow her to stay in the country. Monserrat Belen Arreola was denied the visa in 2023 during President Joe Biden’s administration, though Trump has stepped up efforts to remove undocumented immigrants from the US.”
- “The involvement of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in the case is noteworthy in two ways: The law firm is taking on a pro bono effort that counters a Trump goal, and it is partnering with a group that top law firms have been avoiding during the president’s second term.”
- “The group, National Immigrant Justice Center, has been struggling to find major law firms to take its cases, Lisa Koop, the group’s national director of legal services, wrote in a court filing in a separate case last month.”
- “Several of the group’s usual partner firms ‘have suspended acceptance of new immigration matters due to messaging from the White House about pro bono involvement in immigration matters,’ Koop wrote.”
“OpenAI slams court order to save all ChatGPT logs, including deleted chats” —
- “OpenAI is now fighting a court order to preserve all ChatGPT user logs—including deleted chats and sensitive chats logged through its API business offering—after news organizations suing over copyright claims accused the AI company of destroying evidence.”
- “Before OpenAI had an opportunity to respond to those unfounded accusations, the court ordered OpenAI to ‘preserve and segregate all output log data that would otherwise be deleted on a going forward basis until further order of the Court (in essence, the output log data that OpenAI has been destroying),’ OpenAI explained in a court filing demanding oral arguments in a bid to block the controversial order.
- “‘As a result, OpenAI is forced to jettison its commitment to allow users to control when and how their ChatGPT conversation data is used, and whether it is retained,’” OpenAI argued.
- Meanwhile, there is no evidence beyond speculation yet supporting claims that ‘OpenAI had intentionally deleted data,’ OpenAI alleged. And supposedly there is not “a single piece of evidence supporting” claims that copyright-infringing ChatGPT users are more likely to delete their chats.
- “‘OpenAI did not ‘destroy’ any data, and certainly did not delete any data in response to litigation events,’ OpenAI argued. ‘The Order appears to have incorrectly assumed the contrary.’”
- “For OpenAI, risks of breaching its own privacy agreements could not only ‘damage’ relationships with users but could also risk putting the company in breach of contracts and global privacy regulations.
- “Millions of people use ChatGPT daily for a range of purposes, OpenAI noted, ‘ranging from the mundane to profoundly personal.’”
- “And for business users connecting to OpenAI’s API, the stakes may be even higher, as their logs may contain their companies’ most confidential data, including trade secrets and privileged business information.”
- “Users who found out about the preservation order panicked, OpenAI noted.”
- “One tech worker on LinkedIn suggested the order created ‘a serious breach of contract for every company that uses OpenAI,’ while privacy advocates on X warned, ‘every single AI service ‘powered by’ OpenAI should be concerned.’”
- “Also on LinkedIn, a consultant rushed to warn clients to be ‘extra careful’ sharing sensitive data ‘with ChatGPT or through OpenAI’s API for now,’ warning, ‘your outputs could eventually be read by others, even if you opted out of training data sharing or used ‘temporary chat’!”
