447 Is the jury trial a bit of K's revenge << Prev Next >>
by: ColonelZen	IP: 181.27	rated: 0-0	posted: 2007-07-29 11:20:31
Posted to IV SCOX:     Msg: 36617 of 36641 7/28/2007 6:20:24 PM Recs: 17 Sentiment: Not Disclosed   By: ColonelZen Send PM Profile Ignore Recommend Add To Favorites   Is the jury trial a bit of K's revenge?       Trying to digest AllP's posts from last week, and I'm still somewhat befuddled. What I gather is that the judge can rule on the P/SJ motions AFTER the trial, effectively mooting any jury decisions.     Now the dependencies of this case make a jury trial borderline insane.     I can't possibly believe that K is going to have the jury decide on copyright transfer. Unless I'm totally missing something there was never a piece of paper other than the APA - which expressly excluded copyrights - which could have identified any particular set of works with enough specificity to transfer copyright.     So if the jury hears it and declares copyrights xferred, he moots it after the fact, but if they say nay, fine and dandy he lets it stand.     But *if* the jury rules wrong on copyright xfer, then they *could* well rule wrong on slander of title. Likewise, on the 4.16 waiver provision as ownership of copyright directly relates to the degree of Novell's equitable interest. And trade interference and the rest. Not to mention Novell counterclaims.     So either K is going to limit the jury charge to a very small number of specific matters - declaring beforehand who's proprietary interest is what, or risk having to essentially reverse a jury decision after the fact.     Now IANAL and know damned little about such matters, but it seems to me that de-facto reversing a jury decision would at least make an appellate court (once brought before it) pay attention and say "yes we should look at this".     And of course letting a "wrong" decision by the jury stand would be near certain to bring an appellate court's wrath.     Of course as others have pointed out, being tenured for life means that if he has no greater aspirations he doesn't have to give a damn. But the care and craftmanship we've seen in some earlier decisions make me think that he *does* care about the regard of his fellow jurists at least.     So my WAG here is that K *might* not rule on the SJ motions, but his intent will be clear in the charge to the jury declaring what specifically they have to decide.     So my next question is how does this work? Is K likely to force BSF to pull out all the stops and go to the expense of putting on a full circus in three rings with elephants, high wire acts and an assortment of jugglers and clowns until finally, after weeks, most likely, tell the jury that he only wants a ruling on a very narrow range of issues (mostly Novell counterclaims)? Or is he in some way required to limit things before the trial starts.     Actually since the "message" of AllP's posts seems to be that a judge can do damned near anything he wants - I wonder if staging a circus and then asking the jury whether the third clown on the left's shoes were the wrong color would be a kind of "in" joke among judges for dealing with bizarre plaintiffs.     -- TWZ

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448 Is the jury trial a bit of K's revenge ColonelZen 0-0 2007-07-29 11:23:40