Robert Pogson

I must say I am feeling better about the proceedings now. The judge seems quite fair in spite of the strange ruling of the Court of Appeal and the pre-trial motions.

There have been some clue-bat moments reported on GROKLAW:

• Reporter cpeterson:”One highlight of today: when Ty Mattingly referred to Ed Chatlos’ testimony. (Cue sound of jaws dropping.) “How did you know what Mr. Chatlos said? How did you know that Mr. Chatlos had testified?” asked Brennan. After some stammering, and hunting for an answer, Mattingly said, “Lee Johnson told me.” Bad case of footgun, I think.“. The jury might de-rate that testimony, eh?
• A filing reveals that Maureen O’Gara asked SCO for “war pay” because of the angry responses she gets from her readers and that Blake Stowell, PR guy for SCOG requested MOG to “send a jab PJ’s way. She is now listed as a creditor. The judge is considering what parts of her video-taped testimony to allow. see GROKLAW.
• . Mattingly also testified that he found Novell documents in his garage. SCOG turned them over to Novell only during the trial, a Perry Mason moment which the judge abhors…
• Judge Stewart has a motion from Novell that because SCOG was accusing Novell of slandering their title “to this day”, Novell could introduce evidence of findings under the previous judge who made summary judgements. SCOG has to prove Novell new it was wrong but they could rely on the opinion of a federal court judge. That was a foot-gun moment. Adding a phrase for emphasis repeatedly in questions to witnesses and in the opening argument cost them. Stewart had previously agreed to exclude this information from the jury.
• Reporters describe the awkward moments for SCOG’s witnesses trying to state the copyrights were transferred even though the agreement says they were excluded. How cool is that? There was also news that one of the jurors may be a relative of a possible witness.

All in all, I think it was a good start to a bad trial. The appeal by Novell has reached SCOTUS but there is no word yet that they will hear the case. The lawyers agreed the trial should proceed because it may be a long time before there is any progress at SCOTUS. They also agreed that there is only a small chance of the case being heard statistically.