The judge rejected Michael Johnson's fourth attempt to add shill bidding allegations to his RR Auction lawsuit a few weeks ago. With his attempt to make it a class action lawsuit failing in March 2015 and his attempt to add shill bidding and another claim failing on August 12, Johnson's case heads to trial in January, apparently on his original claims only.

Johnson Attempt to Modify RR Auction Lawsuit Rejected.

According to a declaration by Johnson's lead attorney, Dugan Kelley, they spent seven months and more than $50,000 investigating shill bidding. Johnson's motion to amend his lawsuit would have necessarily included any evidence of RR Auction shill bidding that they discovered during their investigation. They had to come up with anything they could to try to get the judge to approve Johnson's motion. But they presented no evidence of RR Auction illegal bidding, and they didn't say that they found any evidence.

In the end, the judge rejected Johnson's motion primarily because he took too long to file it: 16 months after the suspicious 2008 affidavit by Kay Burris came out in January 2015, which the judge ruled inadmissible. RR Auction fired Burris after discovering that she embezzled hundreds of thousands of dollars from them, and the affidavit, if real, was obviously a negotiating tactic. You don't know what if anything in it is true. Burris tragically committed suicide during the police investigation, shortly after the date on the affidavit.

I'm sure that Johnson and his associates will continue to try to smear RR Auction, but if any evidence of illegal bidding practices by them existed, they would have at least found something by now.

Stick a fork in it. It's done.