Tentative Ruling In Reggie Bush Case (Lake v. Griffin)

By now, perhaps there has been a final ruling. But the tentative ruling by the court was to deny the motion to compel arbitration on the grounds that there was no evidence that the plaintiff (Lake) was at all a party to the arbitration agreement. If the tentative ruling holds, it means that the case will continue to be in court and it will be difficult for the Bush side to keep whatever information that comes out from the NCAA. In a victory for the Bush side (Griffin), however, the court denied the plaintiff's request for further responses to additional interrogatories and sanctioned the plaintiff $2,720. The request for further responses was deemed untimely and there was a failure to properly meet and confer. I assume the sanctions were for abuse of the discovery process by the plaintiff.

4 months ago bruin7982 Comment 8 comments 0 recs |

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Sanctions against Lake's attorney bodes ill

Making a motion without meeting and conferring is an obvious violation of CCP 2023.010 (and I don’t even have to look that up.) First year litigators know they have to meet and confer. If Lake’s attorneys don’t know that, and don’t know how to calculate the days within which to make a motion, then how on earth are they ever going to be able to handle the difficult parts of a law suit.

Once again, it looks like the justsc “sleaze factor” is going to let them slide by, this time because of their adversary’s inability to pick a decent lawyer.

By the way – can you post the tentative? I would like to read it.

by Fox 71 on Aug 1, 2008 12:23 PM PDT 0 recs

Click on the heading to the post

and it will take you to the tentative. It is also here: http://www.sandiego.courts.ca.gov/v3tr/ViewRulingsPDF.aspx?CaseNo=37-2007-00078637-CU-BC-CTL&SelDates=08/01/2008&EventId=243070 (you may have to manually enter it into your browser). I am a lawyer, but not a litigator so not really expert on discovery matters and sanctions. The amount of sanctions seems pretty high – isn’t it over the amount necessary to report it to the state bar? Sounds like the judge isn’t too happy with Lake’s lawyers, which doesn’t bode well for later.

by bruin7982 on Aug 1, 2008 1:04 PM PDT up 0 recs

You have to report over (I think) $750

but you don’t have to report disco sanctions. The amount of sanctions is generally determined by the costs and fees incurred by the other side. Often in simple cases, the judge basically decides how much to award and it’s low. Equally often, if you are on the winning side and receive the sanctions but argue for more, the judge will think you’re greedy and end up giving you nothing.

One truism and one anecdote. Sanctions are routinely requested, and invariably generate ill will in the case between the lawyers. So for collegiality, you don’t want to ask for them. But if you charge your client by the hour your duty to your client says you should try and get reimbursement. The truism is that a request for sanctions ends up generating more heat than light.

Anecdote – I worked on a case (still going, by the way) in which we got something like 28 separate monetary sanctions awards, amounting to over $98,000. I’ve heard of bigger awards, but not more awards in one case.

by Fox 71 on Aug 1, 2008 3:00 PM PDT up 0 recs

Link didn't work

Anyhow, was Lake’s attorney sanctioned for sending improper interrogatories or something else?

It seems to me that the matter will go to trial but also that Lake’s attorney was sanctioned for some reason related to the discovery process. Seems like their motion to compel arbitration was a no go for reasons that we have previously discussed.

Seems like, other than this small sanction, a win for the forces of good right?

by Bruins102NCAA on Aug 1, 2008 8:48 PM PDT up 0 recs

Lake's lawyer made a rookie mistake

CCP 2023.010 defines conduct subject to sanctions. Subpart (h) says that one thing that warrants sanctions is “Making or opposing unsuccessfully and without substantial justification, a motion to compel or to limit discovery.” According to the tentative, Lake’s lawyer filed the motion after the deadline for doing such a thing, and also didn’t “meet and confer” before filing the motion. Those are errors that really should not be made. I generally ask the other side to withdraw motions under those circumstances, and sometimes it happens. Often the judge uses the escape clause - “gee, judge, I had substantial justification…” - to avoid sanctioning someone. But filing a motion without meeting and conferring is really bad.

by Fox 71 on Aug 2, 2008 3:35 AM PDT up 0 recs

What they are saying is...

Lake’s lawyer filed a motion to compel that was a) untimely, and b) he was required to “engage in an appropriate meet and confer process” This motion was denied and in addition to this he was sanctioned. Gotcha. Thanks for the explanation.

The lawyer in question is assumed to have 10 years experience as he passed the bar in 1997.

But in the meantime, the matter will proceed to trial right or can Bush’s lawyers stall this anymore?

by Bruins102NCAA on Aug 2, 2008 4:19 AM PDT up 0 recs

It looks like I was premature with my name calling of Lake's lawyers

Apparently they did meet and confer and apparently the judge is reconsidering her order for sanctions. (I read that somewhere here in the BN.) What that means to me is that the Court’s tentative ruling was just that (tentative), that the judge heard argument and took the matter under submission (meaning the tentative ruling has not become the order of the Court) and will issue an order soon.

Don’t read anything into this. It’s pretty rare when a judge changes a tentative ruling. Almost always it’s because one of the parties neglected to discuss something pretty important. In this case, the important parts to the judge were untimeliness and failing to meet and confer (M&C). Timeliness is simple – the statutes say on rogs that you have 45 days from the date of service to move to compel further answers, and five days is added to that deadline date if the answers are served by mail. That’s pretty simple counting. Even I don’t screw that up. And I still can’t imagine an experienced lawyer leaving out the M & C part of a discovery motion. That requirement is said over and over in the discovery statutes and in every treatise about disco. It’s entirely possible that Lake’s lawyers M&C-ed and got an extention of time to file the motion, buy why on earth would they not mention that to the judge? They were the moving parties, so they got their initial motion and they also got a reply to the opposition. How could they have failed to cover those points? But maybe they did.

Anyway, I still have a little trepidation.

But the good news is that they have depos scheduled. Brothers and sisters: Do NOT take any bets that those depos will go forward. The way things have gone, there will be no-shows, and the Court will ultimately order a disco referee or else order the depos to take place in her jury room so that she can rule immediately on objections. But that will take no-shows, a motion (and since it’s a disco motion it must be preceded by a M&C session) and an order, so the depos will not go until at least November. That’s Fox 71 the prognosticator.

by Fox 71 on Aug 2, 2008 6:38 PM PDT up 0 recs