A juror in a $2.2 billion lawsuit against Citigroup was targeted by the bank's lawyers yesterday because her name appears in the credits for Michael Moore's powerful documentary Capitalism: A Love Story. Juror No. 6, Donna Romo-Gianell, doesn't appear in the film and has never met Moore; her scene, in which she's interviewed about being an unemployed person playing Santa, ended up on the cutting room floor. But even the subtlest Michael Moore taint was enough to make Citigroup's lawyers want her off the jury.

Four minutes of the credits were shown in court yesterday, during which the Communist anthem "The Internationale" played. "I found it scary in the context of the particulars of this case," said Citigroup lawyer Ted Wells. And Judge Jed Rakoff, who ultimately excused the juror for discussing the case outside the courtroom, called the film a "one-sided, scurrilous appeal to anti-bank passion." Reached for comment, Moore told Bloomberg News, "I think [the judge] is amazingly perceptive. It’s kind of like if I were making a documentary about slavery, it would be kind of one-sided in favor of the slaves and against slave-holders." Typical loony left-wing Michael Moore!