My hope that the year 2005 would bid good riddance to the practice of "buried notice" appears to have been overly optimistic judging by the recent decision in Marsden v. Select Medical Corp., 2005 WL 113128 (E.D. Pa.).  The decision, discussed by the Legal Intelligencer here, involves a notice that was challenged by defendants, who claimed that

the notice was of a "stealth character" because it was published "a random 17 days after the case was filed," and was "bur[ied]" in Investor's Business Daily rather than disseminated by a national wire service.

Defendants also argued that the notice was inadequate because it was a departure from the plaintiffs' law firm's "usual practice" of serving notice by news wire. The Court was unpersuaded in the least, ruling that "Defendants' position on this issue is utterly without merit. Investor's Business Daily is a nationally-circulated business-oriented publication catering to investors, and, as such, satisfies the publication requirement of § 78u-4(a)(3)(A)(i)." (citations to two cases from 1997 and 2000 omitted). The Court added that the sufficiency of notice under the PSLRA must be judged against the statutory requirements of the PSLRA rather than any particular law firm's typical practice.

Yes, the PSLRA does allow for notice by "widely circulated national business-oriented publication" or "wire service." As I have argued in the links above, however, (1) the industry standard in the year 2005 is to place such notices on a national business wire, and (2) there is no legitimate reason to deviate from this standard  by providing "stealth" (but apparently legally adequate) notice through some random hard copy business publication such as IBD.

UPDATE: A copy of the decision is available here.