A lot of plaintiffs lawyers in the burgeoning litigation over mortgage-backed bonds have eschewed fraud claims, opting instead for contract allegations that don't require a showing of scienter. Robins Kaplan went for fraud--and on Friday its strategy was vindicated.

Plaintiffs holding out hope that they could hold credit rating agencies liable for slapping AAA ratings on doomed mortgage-backed securities on the theory that the agencies acted as underwriters got some bad news on Wednesday.

True, Wednesday's rulings weren't all bad: Judge Jed Rakoff kept alive claims against banks involved in 19 mortgage-backed securities offerings. But plaintiffs continued their run of futility in ARS litigation and in claims against the ratings agencies.

In his opinion explaining a March dismissal of claims against Moody's and Standard & Poor's, the Manhattan federal district court judge concluded the rating agencies are simply not underwriters, no matter how creatively plaintiffs argue that they are.

Turns out that you don't need to claim First Amendement protection for statements you didn't make.

In the wake of the financial crisis, Moody's, Fitch, and S&P have managed to handily defeat nearly all investor claims over AAA rated securities-gone-bad. But it's a different story if investors have evidence that the ratings agencies collaborated with banks to create risky financial products and tailored their ratings to seduce investors.

Despite some recent defense setbacks, the credit ratings agencies are still proving to be tough litigation targets for investors that placed losing bets on mortgage-backed securities.

Did Moody's, Fitch, and Standard & Poor's really need to hire a small army of high-priced lawyers to go up against a pair of California bond investors who filed a pro se complaint?

Manhattan federal district court judge Harold Baer appeared sympathetic to the claims against the ratings agencies, but explained that he was bound by existing law to dismiss those claims.