In defense of Hogan’s 10 years claim …

I was wondering whether there is a reason behind Hogan’s claim that the judge only ask for disclosure of lawsuits filed in the past 10 years only. In particular, where does the figure of 10 years come from. Why not 7 years or 13 years?

Then it struck me. He was declared bankrupt. One thing a person who was discharged from bankruptcy is interested in is how long that stain will stay with him. In particular, he will be interested to find out how long must he disclose he was bankrupt and how long a credit bureau (Credit Reference Agency in UK) can hold on file that he was bankrupt. I did not find any reference to the former but did find this article in 2009 that says a credit bureau can hold information about someone’s bankruptcy for  10 years only.

Thus, it is possible that he made an honest mistake that he thought the judge was asking for disclosure of any lawsuit for the past 10 years only because he was predisposed to think so.

However, this still does not excuse him  for not disclosing his lawsuit with the company that has dealing with Samsung as discussed in my previous article.  Furthermore as GrokLaw points out in PJ’s second update of the article, another juror disclosed a lawsuit back in 1998 and the judge did inquire more about the case. If any, that is a cue to him that his understanding that the judge is only looking for lawsuit that is less than 10 years old is wrong, if he was paying attention.