Judge Kimball Strikes SCO's Jury Trial Demand

watchingeyes writes "In a ruling on various pre-trial motions in limine and other, similar motions in the SCO vs Novell case, Judge Kimball today issued a ruling striking SCO's demand for a jury trial, ruling that Novell's claims seek equitable, and not legal relief. In addition, he denied SCO's request for entry of judgment that would allow them to appeal his ruling on the UNIX copyrights and Novell's waiver rights, ruling that if SCO wants to appeal any of his rulings, it can do them all at once after trial. He also granted Novell's request to voluntarily dismiss its own breach of contract claim, denied SCO's motion to exclude press coverage and evidence from the IBM case, granted Novell's motion in limine preventing SCO from contesting his summary judgment ruling at trial, granted Novell's second motion in limine preventing SCO from arguing that SCOsource licenses that license SVRx only incidentally aren't SVRx licenses, denied another SCO motion in limine which improperly asked the Judge to issue rulings on contractual issues and denied Novell's final motion in limine which sought to prevent SCO from contesting Novell's apportionment of royalties analysis. Looks like SCO will be facing a trial in-front of a judge which has already ruled against them numerous times."

Here's an example

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/1506245/ [wral.com]

The guy who prosecuted the Duke lacrosse players. Disbarred.

The SCO cases have consumed years of the court's time and have cost the other parties many millions of dollars in lawyer's fees. Their cases have zero merit. The lawyers should have know the cases had no merit. My WAG is that they will get smacked real hard.

My other WAG is that Darl gets nailed for Lanham act violations.

Re:Waste, nothing but waste

[Adult film producer]

i wouldnt' worry too much about all of this. After the USD collapses and sinks to the bottom of the sea this whole game by SCO, the RIAA, and all these other companies that depend on "intellectual capital" will evaporate. The USD closed under 80 today, bernanke will not cut rates (but I hope he will just to sink the dollar even further).. inflation that the u.s. consumer has never seen is on the horizon and cannot be stopped. The games these CEO's want to play are over with.. it was fun, but time has run out.

Well ... your alternative is ?

[golodh]

For better or worse, the US judiciary is often the last defender of

(a) the constitution (just think of the PATRIOT act and other legal shenennigans by the current administration)

(b) individual freedom (versus the government)

(c) individual rights (versus the government and any other body that wields large amounts of power such as large corporations).

And yes, a large amount of time, care, money and attention is needed to adjudicate the conflicting claims and counterclaims. However I personally believe that it's safe to say that an impartial legal system is by and large one of the few remaining moral high grounds that the US can show to the world. Not that it's always perfect of course: the more money you can throw at it, the better your interests will be protected. But a certain minimum protection is guaranteed.

Unfortunately it is all but impossible to say what part of the care and the proceedings is "waste", and what part is "essential safeguard". And yes ... a particularly clever lawyer will know ways of "gaming the system" by complicating a case, raising far-out but still undeniable issues, and can usually secure long delays if nothing else. This costs a heap of money of course, which is why you don't usually see this sort of thing in disputes involving ordinary citizens or small corporations.

But having said this, those who feel the urge to wave their "Libertarian" flag and slag judicial procedures should realise that this regulated form of dispute resolution is what allows a modern society to exist, and that anarchy and "afghanistan-style" dispute resolution are just around the corner. This is the country that struggled its way out of "Wild West" style justice to where it is now. Remove or curtail judicial care and you'll be back there before you know.

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[dmartin]

This is something that has confused me before, so I will ask it again in this context. The seventh amendment states

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

I am also aware that corporations are treated much like persons, and the amount in question certainly comes to more than $20, so why are they not guaranteed the right to trial by jury if they request it?

The answers I got when I asked about this last time (it was about people) was that someone could request a jury trial for civil matters, but they would have to pay huge court expenses. One argument may by that a corporation does not have the same rights as a person. After all, the USSC has ruled that "free speechquot; and commerical speech are quite different, and commercial speech is the only type of speech a corporation is likely to be involved in. Or is it that the costs to SCO would be too high? Or is it a technical definition of the words common law that I am missing?

Any insight would be appreciated!

Re:Poor, Poor SCO

[dmartin]

I did. It mentioned common law, and I checked some wikipedia articles on it. Common law is when the rulings of a judge are essentially codified into law. I was under the (mistaken) understanding that most of the US system was under common law. I was not trying to be a lawyer, or trying to give a legal opinion. I was expressing the fact that I did not understand the law, pointed out where the possible problems were (e.g. the definition of common law) and asked for any help in what the article meant.

    It is not your job to educate me on such matters, but your rudeness is uncalled for. The first reply I got gave me an area to look into to discern the difference and help me in my understanding of the law. I can understand your response if my post had gone out and claimed that the judge was completely wrong in his ruling and that a cursory reading of the constitution told you the judge was an idiot. However, what I said was I did not understand why the seventh amendent did not apply, and asked for help with my lack of understanding.

    If you don't want to help people understand, and they are not propogating misinformation, why the need to be so rude?

Lawyers don't get a free ride

[Anonymous Coward]

People seem to believe that lawyers get a free ride. It isn't true.
A lawyer who gets caught breaking the law or violating the Bar's
regulations will be punished. The thing is that lawyers, being
lawyers, are adept at staying out of trouble even if by only a
hair. Boies is particularly notorious for skating near the edge.

The California Bar uses most of its budget to discipline/disbar/etc. lawyers.
http://www.courthousenews.com/editorials/Policzer/ policzer140.htm [courthousenews.com]

Here's an abuse of process case:
http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/family_law/2006/0 4/case_law_develo_35.html [typepad.com]

A little casual googling will find you thousands of lawyers who have been
punished/suspended/disbarred. BTW, there is a difference between playing
hardball in a case that has some merit and bringing forward a case that
has no merit. Judge K. is pissed and his rulings make it clear. Take for
example his warning to SCO that they should quit trying to argue things that
he has already decided. Also consider his previous comments about the lack
of evidence they produced after an amazing amount of discovery. AllParadox
thinks there will be sanctions and he has a heck of a lot more legal experience
than either of us.