Interestingly, the court has received no response whatsoever from Milberg Weiss on behalf of the CMI group.
None of the parties in attendance at the December 8, 2003, hearing furnished a reason or professed to know why the Milberg Weiss office did not attend. And Milberg Weiss has provided no subsequent explanation to the court pursuant to the December 17, 2003, order.

II
In the wake of the decision of the Ninth Circuit to remove Barton as lead plaintiff and the unexplained abandonment of the case by the CMI group, the court is left in something of a predicament.

A
First, given that no other plaintiff but Barton indicates an interest at the present time to serve as lead plaintiff, he once again appears to be the logical choice (and now the onlyJonathan Bachman/Associated Press

Evan Perlmutter graduated from James Madison University in 2008. A few months later, he started working for Madison Square Garden in the ad-sales department. The pay was lousy. "About $31,000 a year," Perlmutter, now 33, recalled over the phone recently. "Not enough to really live in New York." But for Perlmutter, a lifelong Knicks fan who grew up in Long Island, the perks of the gig outweighed the low salary. This, after all, was his dream job.

"One of the reasons I took it was to have access to the arena and to be able to take the atmosphere in," he said. "And you should see the amount of merchandise and memorabilia I have."

But Perlmutter, who left his MSG job seven years ago and now works for