Apple vs Samsung Judge to Investigate Alleged Jury Foreman Misconduct
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Samsung's going to get its day in court once more, and yet again, more than a billion dollars potentially hangs in the balance. Yesterday, Judge Lucy Koh agreed to "consider the questions" posed about Apple vs Samsung jury foreman Velvin Hogan's alleged misconduct as part of a wider-reaching December 6th hearing.
The South Korean company claims Hogan failed to disclose that Seagate, Hogan's former employer and a key Samsung business partner, slapped him with a lawsuit following a personal bankruptcy back in 1993. Samsung says the lack of disclosure prevented its lawyers from probing Hogan about potential biases and conflicting interests.
Hogan says that jury candidates were only asked for hard details about litigation that occurred in the past decade, not twenty years gone. He finds Samsung's supposed ignorance of his past hard to swallow and publicly posed the question as to whether or not the Korean company allowed him on the jury as some sort of contingency plan: a possible way to gain a mistrial if things went badly in court.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CNET notes that Hogan in fact mentioned being embroiled in past litigation as part of the jury screening process, even if he didn't mention Seagate specifically. The lawyers consulted by that website said that Koh is highly unlikely to overturn the $1 billion verdict because of Hogan's actions.
Apple's lawyers will be forced to turn over the information they had about Hogan as part of Koh's inquiry.