Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Magistrate feels “like a schoolmarm scolding little boys."

The whole opinion is definitely worth a read. Here's a snippet:
  • My practice is to preliminarily review every motion called an “emergency” the day it
    is filed. However, other cases, motions filed, scheduled hearings and settlement conferences do not afford me the luxury of dropping everything to hear a party’s perceived “emergency” especially when it involves a case that has already taken an inordinate amount of the court’s time (to the detriment of other litigants who need decisions in their matters) to resolve yet another in a series of routine discovery disputes. Thus, as the motion has worked its way up the tall stack of other matters on my desk, there are no longer any depositions to take.
  • I am not the Maytag repairman of federal judges desperately hoping for something to do.
  • Counsel for Plaintiff could not resist replying. Mr Kossack’s reply adds up the number of Mr. Cannon’s improper objections during Mr. McCurdy’s deposition and compares them to the number of improper objections Mr. Cannon accuses him of making. Not wanting to miss an opportunity to engage equally unseemly “tit-for-tat,” Mr Kossack pads his reply with gratuitous comments which include a reference to counsels’ respective choice of beverages during depositions.
  • To ensure that reading the 185 pages of these exchanges was not a complete waste of time, I assigned this motion to a law student extern to prepare a legal memorandum to further his education. In a short period of time he was able to prepare a well-written, concise memo which identified a large number of state and federal cases throughout the country articulating the standards for making deposition objections and identifying improper conduct for which lawyers have been admonished or sanctioned. He correctly concluded that both lawyers engaged in misconduct which violated Rule 30(c)(2).
  • The exchanges related in excruciating, repetitive detail in the moving and responsive papers and their attachments were painful to read. If I was an elementary school teacher instead of a judge I would require both counsel to write the following clearly established legal rules on a blackboard 500 times.
  • Although these papers, and the conduct they relate, make me feel like a school marm scolding little boys, I am the judge whose duty it is to decide this motion. Accordingly, Mr. Kossack and Mr. Cannon are admonished for engaging in conduct which I know you know violates Rule 30(c)(2). You are better men and better lawyers than the conduct in which you have engaged illustrates.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

There should be a huge earthquake in California on September 3, 2010And remember, seismologists can't even predict earthquakes. Everyone's going to be talking about this one. After it happens, I'll come back and tell everyone how I knew about it ahead of time. Mark my words, DOM.

Anonymous said...

Love those school marm judges. We have a pretty hot mag in this district.