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Edited on Thu Jun-09-05 12:18 PM by Land Shark
Background: 1. Randy Gordon filed the lawsuit on our behalf April 7 in state court.
2. Sequoia and Snohomish were served on April 13 and April 14, respectively, making their Answers (or sometimes, motions to dismiss) due twenty days later, or no later than May 4, 2005.
3. Gordon filed a notice of unavailability for 3 weeks for a jury trial in Olympia, Washington (that later resulted in an $8.1M jury verdict.
4. The Gordon trial and a long-planned trip to DC related to Gordon's congressional candidacy (already announced against freshman Republican Dave Reichert in WA-8) was thus from May 8 to June 1.
5. On May 11, Sequoia removed the lawsuit to federal court, Sequoia's attorney purporting to sign the agreement thereto on behalf of Snohomish's lawyer, on his own pleading paper. (If this was to be done, it had to be done w/in 30 days, so removal alone, without other circumstances, is not a problem)
6. Five days later, Snohomish and Sequoia both filed the largest motions to dismiss allowable under the rules, approximately 24 pages apiece. Again they needed to file an answer or a motion to dismiss on or near this date, but they controlled the due date on a response. They granted the least possible time, so the response to the motions were due Monday June 6, only five days after Gordon's return from trial and DC.
7. Gordon filed a motion for a continuance of 3 weeks so the motion to dismiss would be decided July 1, citing an upcoming motion for remand and Sequoia's notice of his schedule. Such a continuance would move the date of the motions to dismiss from June 10 as originally scheduled to July 1.
8. Snohomish filed a ten page brief opposing any continuance, calling US "strategic" in wanting the court to decide its own jurisdiction before deciding motions to dismiss, and arguing generally that plaintiff "controlled" the filing here and should have left his schedule open for "extensive pre-Answer litigation" which was "expected". (Yeah, expected in STATE court prior to May 4...)
9. Sequoia "joined" the motion with a single page signed by both its CAlifornia law firm as well as its Washington state law firm. It said that alternatively, if the motion to continue were granted that sequoia's counsel were unavailable FROM JUNE 27 TO JULY 8. (WITHOUT EXPLAINING THE RULES HERE, THIS WOULD HAVE THE PRACTICAL EFFECT, IF GRANTED, OF INSURING THAT THE MOTIONS TO DISMISS WOULD BE HEARD FIRST, BECAUSE IF WE RESPECTED THEIR 'UNAVAILABILITY' DURING THAT TIME,WE WOULD HAVE TO NOTE THE REMAND MOTION FOR MID TO LATE JULY, BUT IT HAS TO BE FILED BY JUNE 10.)
10. Interestingly enough, while Randy Gordon is the only informed lawyer of record on our side, on Sequoia's side they have 3 lawyers of record (and unknown #'s of associates) and Snohomish has 2 lawyers of record (and is the County's largest law firm: the prosecutor's office). It thus seems unlikely that two different law firms, one in CA and one in WA, that didn't know each other until recently, suddenly have the same dates of unavailability, and they have such a salutary effect on their litigation position on continuances.
11. We filed our response to the motion to dismiss (under another thread) on Monday, June 6, as required, still requesting more time to respond to Sequoia's use of overruled cases, etc.
12. On Wednesday the first RULING came down.
The judge acknowledged that the response to the motion to dismiss was "timely filed" but ruled that circumstances still warranted a continuance, which shall be to July 1 (our requested date).
While not specifying whether he read all the briefs and joinders, federal judges and their staff always do. The court further held that the motions would be heard "without oral argument" on July 1. SO I GUESS SEQUOIA CAN GO ON AND BE "UNAVAILABLE" AFTER ALL!!!
Oh, and the Judge further ordered that he would like to hear the motion for remand FIRST.
TOday we file our motion for remand.
WHile some thought the response to Sequoia's motion to dismiss was eloquent and devastating, this motion will be a NUCLEAR bomb.
If they want to go nuclear on checks and balances (as they have with filibusters as well as voting) then we'll go nuclear on their TACTICS. I'll post the brief or a link to it no later than Friday, perhaps today, when I get it from my attorney.
BTW how many congressional candidates do YOU know that take time out to do huge pro bono cases, because it's the right thing to do?
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