Judge Cohn Refuses to Stay Discovery Pending MDL Transfer.

 In light of the fact that the MDL Panel is meeting in Miami today, it seems timely to note this interesting opinion from Judge Cohn refusing to stay written discovery in a case that has been designated by the defendant for possible MDL transfer.

Here is Judge Cohn's reasoning:

Plaintiffs contend that whether or not this case is transferred to an MDL court, discovery will commence either way. Under the particular facts surrounding this action, this Court agrees that there is no reason to delay discovery. Defendant has been litigating similar cases for several years. In reviewing Grace and Morgan, it appears that the particular facts regarding duties and supervision of store managers may differ from state to state, meaning that discovery of the duties of Florida managers is likely relevant regardless of transfer. Given these appellate decisions, it is not clear that this action will be transferred. In addition, a hearing on the pending transfer motion may not occur for 60 days, given the Panel’s schedule. These facts make this case different from many other actions that this Court has completely stayed pending MDL transfer.

Therefore, the Court concludes that while it will grant a continuance of the scheduling conference and a limited stay of this action, this stay does not include written discovery requests. The Court is not compelling production of any documents – the Court is merely exercising its discretion not to stay written discovery. The Court reaches this decision even though a scheduling conference has not taken place.

 Welcome back to Miami, visiting judges!

Let's Do the Time Warp Again!

Does anyone else read this and think 1992:

ADVISORY
U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF FLORIDA

Any attorneys who need to bring in a laptop, cell phone, or electronic equipment of any kind should email Catherine_Wade@flsd.uscourts.gov no later than one week prior to the hearing date. Please ensure the email contains the name of the attorney(s) and the type of electronic equipment they will be bringing into the Courthouse. If the US Marshals Service does not receive this information in advance of the hearing, the attorney(s) will not be permitted to enter the Courthouse with their equipment until the necessary clearance is obtained. [Attorneys who are members of The Florida Bar are permitted to bring electronic equipment into the Courthouse upon presentation of their Florida Bar card.] Please note, members of the public, including non-attorney parties, are not permitted to bring in electronic equipment of any kind absent a Court order.

Listen, I'm for judicial security as much as anyone.  But how does that rationale extend to attorneys with cell phones or tablets?

Why do attorneys from, say, New York need to email Catherine a week in advance in order to bring in their phone while local counsel in Fort Lauderdale can waltz in with her laptop?

Does this make sense?

Friday Morning Digital Dump

Let's see, what do people want to talk about this morning?

Ervin makes a pitch for bringing the Gulf Oil Disaster to Miami:

Ervin A. Gonzales, a Florida lawyer, argued that “clearly, Louisiana is the most affected state, but there may be appearances of conflict” for judges and jurors. He suggested Miami.

Note to NYT -- I know Hispanic names are tricky, but it's Gonzalez, not Gonzales.

(Doesn't anyone fact-check anymore?)

Big surprise -- people don't always understand contracts that they sign, especially when there's lots of fine print:

The agency says DIRECTV buried additional fees in small print in service agreements with customers. For example, it cited a $5 charge for a second receiver; a $19.95 fee for complex installation, handling and delivery; $6 per month for DVR service; and $10 a month for HD access. But the company's offers of free installation in up to four rooms and free HD DVR receiver upgrades didn't include information about these fees.

In addition, the suit says customers who thought they were signing a one-year contract based on ads that offered to lock in a price for a full year were actually signing two-year contracts.
And, the suit says, ads that claimed the service offers more than 130 HD channels, including local channels and exclusive sports packages, added in fine print ``eligibility for local channels based on service address. Programs not delivered in HD in all markets,'' and ``Blackout restrictions and other conditions apply.''

The consumer services department says these conditions didn't clearly explain to consumers that even with the most expensive programming packages, they wouldn't get all channels all the time.

Bit of a hodge-podge of a complaint if you ask me, but here's the important thing: the contract specified a pool of exactly 2530 feet! 

Karmic payback's a b@$ch:

Sam Wyly also funded the Swift Boat campaign that torpedoed Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign.

What else -- Thor trailer here (boo, it's been taken down), and happy birthday to Buddy Guy!

A Ticket Attorney, A Furniture Attorney, And A Traffic Hearing Examiner Go Into A Bar......

And one of them comes out a Palm Beach circuit court judge:

Lemoine fired the first salvo by touting records that show he has handled 684 cases in Palm Beach County courts, compared to Daire's 143, Small's 118 and Goodman's 18. The records, he says, prove who has the needed experience.

Goodman counters that Lemoine is mainly a ticket doctor, which lends itself to high volume. Lemoine said traffic cases represent about 20 percent of his practice. Lemoine, in turn, writes off Daire's high numbers, saying many of the cases are to collect money from customers who stiffed the furniture stores.

Oy, good thing something like this could never happen here in Miami-Dade.

In other news, blind pig......Glenn Garvin.

Finally, Miami is in the running to land the BP Oil Spill litigation:

A federal judicial panel is meeting Thursday in Boise, Idaho, to consider whether to consolidate some or all of the lawsuits for pretrial decisions before a single judge, a development that most observers say is a foregone conclusion. BP and the other companies favor federal court in Houston — near their major U.S. operations — while a majority of plaintiffs' attorneys have suggested New Orleans, closer to the broken well and to many of the hardest-hit victims. Courts in Florida, Mississippi and Alabama also are being suggested as venues.

Bring home the bacon -- this could do more for the local economy than 15 Super Bowls.

Propaganda All Is Phony

I'm in a pissy mood this morning.

I guess what bothers me the most is that today I actually agree with Glenn Garvin.

Blind pig etc.

Did you see this great Julie Kay article on all the money lawyers will be making out of the Rothstein mess?

I think Judge Stettin and the bankruptcy lawyers will make out, but I have my doubts on the investor suits.

Once you tap out TD Bank, what's left?

Speaking of economic booms, tomorrow our shiny new courthouse will be hosting oral argument before the MDL Panel, which coordinates multi-district litigation in all federal courts.

(The JPMDL docket for tomorrow is here.)

That means dozens of the nation's top lawyers will be flying in from all over the country, billing every step of the way, and spending the client's money today and tomorrow in fancy restaurants and hotels and -- of course -- strip clubs.

Then, tomorrow morning, these same bleary-eyed attorneys will have approximately 45 seconds to make a pitch for their favored city -- great airports, great judges, great proximity to [pick from column A] -- to the Panel, which has already decided where to park the litigation anyways.

So basically it's a lot of fun and you don't want to miss it.

MDL Panel Creates Giant Sucking Sound.

Yes kids, those civil litigators all in quiet mourning today are lamenting the huge loss of business due to the MDL Panel's surprise decision to export dozens of Chinese Drywall cases pending in the SD FL to -- of all places -- Louisiana:

Coral Gables attorney Ervin Gonzalez, who has filed about 20 drywall cases, said the consolidated litigation will allow plaintiff attorneys to share information and avoid costly duplicative court costs.

“I think it’s good we are going to start moving on these cases,” the Colson Hicks Eidson partner said.

Plaintiffs' counsel are less dramatically impacted by this decision, as their ability to organize cases is not necessarily dependent on the location of the litigation, although that sometimes does play a role.

But for defense counsel hired by large firms as local counsel or in the Miami offices of national firms involved in the litigation and hoping to get a big chunk of this work, the MDL Panel decision may have a momentous impact -- potentially millions of dollars in work yanked from our local legal economy and exported to lawyers in Louisiana, who will likely be working with the DC or NY-based offices of national firms.

Oh well, at least it's New Orleans.

(MDL junkies, take heart -- the Panel did send two pieces of litigation our way recently, the Kaplan qui tam cases to "seasoned jurist" Judge Seitz, and the checking overdraft cases to the heavily seasoned Judge King).