Legal News

Mattel: Juror?s ?Inappropriate Ethnic Remark? Not Grounds for Mistrial

By Dan Slater

For you evidence and procedure junkies out there, here’s Mattel’s opposition motion to MGA’s motion for a mistrial in the Barbie-Bratz battle. It was filed yesterday by Mattel’s lawyer, John Quinn, of Quinn Emanuel.

Last Friday, we noted the news out of California that Juror #8 in the Barbie-Bratz trial, in which Mattel won the first phase — was removed for making slurs about the ethnicity of Isaac Larian, the Jewish, Iranian-born CEO of MGA, maker of Bratz.

Juror #8’s remarks reportedly characterized Iranians as “stubborn, rude” and as “thieves” who have “stolen other person’s ideas.” The remarks were made during deliberations in the first phase of the trial that found Larian had aided a Mattel Barbie designer, Carter Bryant, who created the Bratz concept in violation of his Mattel contract. (MGA is represented by Skadden’s Tom Nolan.)

Here’s the opening of Mattel’s motion:

It is beyond legitimate dispute that nine fair, honest, impartial jurors returned a unanimous verdict against defendants. After those nine jurors reached their verdict but before it was returned, a tenth juror made an inappropriate ethnic remark that was condemned by the other jurors. The court found the remark had no effect on the jury’s verdict. And yet, because it was made, MGA insists that the verdict, reached after hearing two months of evidence, must be summarily tossed. Neither the law nor the facts require such a result. . . .

[MGA] claims the remark reveals the juror had preconceived notions, and “must have” been biased all along. But as the Supreme Court has repeatedly explained, having preconceived notions — even abhorrent ones — is very different from being biased in the legal sense relevant here . . .While the law grants wide berth to counsel to use voir dire to ferret out jurors whose experiences or preconceptions may raise questions about impartiality, once a jury has been impaneled both the procedural rules for uncovering bias and the substantive standards governing its assessment change dramatically.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 01, 2008 (boomark / email).