Monday, July 20, 2009

Tenenbaum pretrial conference complete; no immediate rulings on pending motions; trial limited to one week

I just spoke with someone who was present in the courtroom this morning for the pretrial conference in the Joel Tenenbaum case. In sum, there was much housekeeping, but no substantive rulings. Here's the scoop:
  • The entire trial will be completed the week of July 27. Contrary to Judge Gertner's usual practice, she will conduct trial until 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. each day, rather than holding morning-only sessions.
  • Judge Gertner has not yet reached a decision on the plaintiffs' motion for partial summary judgment on the fair use issue. She said she expects to issue her ruling by mid-week.
  • Judge Gertner has deferred ruling whether to impose sanctions on Tenenbaum's counsel, Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, for recording opposing counsel and then posting the results to the Internet.
  • The court issued no immediate ruling on Nesson's oral motion to reconsider her decision to exclude proposed defense expert Wayne Marshall, a Brandeis University enthnomusicologist (and Nesson's son-in-law) who was identified to plaintiffs three months after the court-imposed deadline.
The plaintiffs moved to dismiss Atlantic Recordings from the case. This is a pure housekeeping matter; there are no Atlantic songs among the 30 the labels decided to pursue at trial.

After the hearing, the court issued the following notice:
Electronic Clerk's Notes for proceedings held before Judge Nancy Gertner: Final Pretrial Conference/hearing on all pending matters held on 7/20/2009....Plf Mtn for Atty Oppenheim to appear Pro-hac vice-allowed; Dft moves orally to reconsider endorsement re:expert Wayne Marshall-under advisement; Plf moves orally to drop claims re: Atlantic recordings-Allowed, Plf will file an electronic mtn immediately.....all other pending matters taken under advisement. Trial will go forward on Monday 7/27/09 at 9:00am. (Atty present: Oppenheim, Reynolds, Burton, Pariser, Nesson, Kamholtz)(Court Reporter: O'Hara.)(Attorneys present: Nesson,) (Molloy, Maryellen)
I'll post any orders on the pending motions as soon as I get them.

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