- Joined
- Nov 21, 2020
In the case of Stabbins v Redfield, N.D. California.
The court has released the MP3 of the May 1st hearing(ECF 106).
Attached m4a is original version containing multiple hearings.
Enjoy.
The Transcribulator 2000 has completed its work
The court has released the MP3 of the May 1st hearing(ECF 106).
Attached m4a is original version containing multiple hearings.
Enjoy.
The Transcribulator 2000 has completed its work
Auto generated by AI. Not an official transcript. "Redfield" is Redfield's lawyer.
0:00:03
Clerk: So the next case we'll be calling is Stebbins versus Redfield.
Clerk: Mr. Stebbins, do you have access to video?
Stebbins: Yes, I do. And it was showing a minute ago. Let me see. There we go. There you are.
0:00:39
Clerk: Okay, great. Hold on just one moment.
Clerk: Proceedings are being recorded by the court. Any other recording of this proceeding, either by video, audio, including screenshots, or other copying of the hearing is strictly prohibited.
Clerk: I'll let the judge know we're ready.
0:01:12
Clerk: Okay. Okay.
Clerk: Okay. Calling civil case number 23-321, David A. Stebbins v. Sidney Redfield.
Clerk: Will the parties please state your appearances, starting with the plaintiff.
Stebbins: My name is David Stebbins. I'm representing myself pro se.
Judge: All right. Good morning, Mr. Stebbins.
Redfield: Good morning, Your Honor. Kurt Edmondson for the defendant.
0:01:43
Judge: Thank you. A couple of things here. As you know, this is the initial case management conference. And I received two statements from you, which our local rules do allow for. But I would think that in the future, if you're going to be asked to file another statement, either in connection with the status conference or otherwise, that you do submit one and just have your respective positions set forth. In other words, joint doesn't necessarily mean people agree with everything, but it's just jointly submitted. There are times when I would say, It would be very difficult for, let's say, counsel for one party to deal with a pro se litigant on the other side. But it just seemed to me that Mr. Stebbins is sophisticated enough that that could be perhaps worked out between you. Also, I couldn't really see a major difference between these two statements. It was almost like you just each filed kind of a joint statement. But there are a couple of things that neither of you did that should be done in the future and should have been done this time. All right. One is neither of you gave me a Chambers copy. All right. Please read my standing orders. I'm old enough, so I'm still dealing with paper. All right. They're all manner of judges that you wouldn't have to give Chambers copies to, and they love to look at everything online. That's not me. All right. So please do. In the future, you have to give me a chambers copy or you're going to start getting sort of nasty orders telling you that bad things could happen if you don't give me one. All right. The next thing is that neither of you put on your statement the date of the conference and the time. It's important to do that, one, so I don't have to go around trying to figure out when this is going to be heard, and two, you'd be surprised how often one party or the other misunderstood what the date and time was, and it comes to the fore if you put that on. Any appearance you're going to be making, if it's a hearing on a motion or otherwise, be sure to put the date and time.
0:04:09
Judge: Then another matter. Now this, council having, I guess, read the local rules of this district in the defendant's statement, submitted everything on numbered page paper.
Stebbins: It's not that I don't, it's not that I didn't read that. It's just that my word processor, for whatever reason, doesn't even allow me to do that. The software that I use. And when I downloaded the format from the defendant's email, from the defense counselor's email, it had the numbered lines on the left side, the email attachment did. But then when I downloaded that, those left sides were just gone and I don't have the ability to put them back.
0:04:48
Judge: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Stebbins. Can I ask you not to interrupt me?
Stebbins: I'm sorry, ma'am.
Judge: Okay. What I was going to say is that you should submit on numbered paper. If your program does not allow for it and you're going to be filing your own individual documents, documents, Mr. Stebbins, then I would just suggest you look to see if you can handle this through an alternative program. And to the extent that you are submitting something that's a jointly filed document, it can be then given to Mr. Edmondson to take the laboring or in printing it and then it'll be on numbered paper. The reason for the requirement in the local rules, and I wasn't going to accuse you of not reading them, but in any event, the reason for it is often one wants to make reference to a particular part of a filing. The easiest way to do that is by page and line numbers. And that's why it's important to do that if you can. Now, in any event, let's get back to this.
0:06:11
Judge: Mr. Stebbins originally was concerned that this court didn't have personal jurisdiction, but that is not like subject matter jurisdiction, which can't be waived. Personal jurisdiction can't be. And this defendant said, I'm perfectly happy to be in the Northern District, so that's fine. Uh, and, uh, then, uh, the defendant says they are going to move for judgment on the pleadings.
Judge: Uh, they did answer, but, uh, then the question would be, uh, you can answer and then essentially make the same arguments one could make, uh, if they filed a motion to dismiss instead of an answer. What were you thinking about in that regard, Mr. Edmondson? What particular deficiency did you think might give rise to a motion for judgment?
0:06:54
Redfield: Yes, Your Honor. Kurt Edmondson for the defendant. Sure, that's okay. What I would do, and I'm glad you brought this up, is I would make a transcript of the YouTube video in question. It's about an hour long. and also provide the video. And that's incorporated by reference into the pleadings by Mr. Stebbins' allegations, and then go through the points of defamation, alleged defamation, and see if we can narrow this down by determining whether some of those are just statements of opinion, qualified, you know, their factual statements, you know, things like that, that we can take judicial notice of. Just sort of clean up the pleadings.
0:07:42
Judge: Okay, hold on, Mr. Stemmons. All right, now, a motion for judgment on the pleadings. much like a motion to dismiss, assuming it's based on Rule 12b-6 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, is limited to the face of the complaint plus documents that have been essentially relied on in the complaint or that the court can take judicial notice of.
0:08:21
Judge: And so there are limitations. Mr. Edmondson has identified why he feels the court can consider the video even though it wasn't attached, let's say, to the complaint. And he may be right about that. I'm not going to rule on that right now. But let's say he is. All right. The dispute that's being made here is whether or not some of the statements really aren't actionable. All right. In other words, if somebody is just making, you know, kind of their own personal opinion, I think this person is fill in the blank. That may not be actionable versus this person is fill in the blank. All right. So what I'm thinking, though, is that it may be worth your talking to each other. Have you tried to do that a little bit? And what happened when you tried to do it?
0:09:30
Redfield: I'm happy to talk with Mr. Steffens.
Stebbins: Well, I mean, I don't know. Just so you know, I did try to talk to the defendant before he lawyered up, and the defendant was completely unamenable. Okay, hold on.
Judge: Hold on. I mean, that's party to party. But now we have an intermediary. It would be nice if you had a lawyer, Mr. Stebbins. And did you try and retain anyone? Oh, he's putting fingers together showing money. Okay. Well, I don't know what your financial circumstances are. We do have, through the San Francisco Bar Association, a pro bono lawyer program. It doesn't mean you would necessarily get a free lawyer, but it does mean if you want to contact them, they will talk to you and take a look at whether you might be eligible. And if so... Whether it's worth them trying to see if a law firm as part of their sort of civic duty would be willing to represent you. Would that be something you'd be interested in?
0:10:47
Stebbins: I have actually contacted the pro bono office multiple times this case. Mostly what they're doing is they're taking a lawyer whose first name is Deborah. I don't even know her last name. And she's basically advising me on my pro se plans while I remain pro se myself.
Judge: All right, but they're helping you.
Stebbins: Yes.
Judge: Okay, that's fine then. I recently, recent, I don't know, Tempest Fugit, let's say in the last couple of years, that'll be recent.
Judge: I did have a pro se trial in which the pro se plaintiff was being counseled throughout by that office. And her name is Deborah Leon. And she was the head of the pro bono project here. So you have the chief person. And they counseled that person all the way through. And so that may be what she has assessed as the best way to handle it. Now, let me tell you what's being done here, okay? Mr. Edmondson is raising a particular legal question. My understanding, and I'll confirm this with him, is that he is not saying that every statement you say his client made is a statement that you cannot bring a defamation claim based on, but that a number of them you cannot as a matter of law. Now, let me see if I'm right or wrong on that.
0:12:20
Redfield: Your Honor, Kurt Edmondson for the defendant. It's okay. You don't have to keep saying it. Okay.
Redfield: All right. Your aggregate and whether it's done by motion for general judgment on the pleadings or an alternate on motion to strike particular allegations, I think the result is the same. All right.
Judge: The idea that some may be okay, but others aren't is kind of your thinking, right?
Redfield: Yeah, yeah. We got 10 claims, but it's all defamation.
Judge: All right.
0:12:55
Judge: In the old days, okay, plaintiffs in bringing a claim in federal court didn't have to say much about it in order to go forward on their lawsuit, right? In more recent years, in two cases in particular that everybody refers to as Iqbal and Twombly, all right, the federal courts were then required to screen essentially complaints to see whether if everything that the person said there was enough to... if you would have called a witness to say at trial, what was in there, would it be enough to actually go to a jury on? In other words, in the old days trial, you had to call a witness. Nope. Put your finger down.
0:13:47
Stebbins: I understand.
Judge: All right. But I'll just keep going just to clarify. And then if there's any question, fine. in the old days, and that continues even today for both trial and summary judgment. For summary judgment, you did not have to call the witness, but you had to put in declarations or other admissible evidence for a summary judgment to show that you could win. And then you didn't ever have to do that for your complaint before. You kind of said, I'm the plaintiff. This person did me wrong. I had an injury and that's it. And now you have to actually put down the facts, even though it doesn't have to be under oath and you don't have to call a witness, but you got to put in the facts. that support your claim as if you called the witness, you could go to a jury on it. So what I suggest is this, all right, that the two of you talk, that Mr. Edmondson, you tell Mr. Stebbins which particular statements attributed to your client in your legal view cannot support
0:15:16
Judge: even if they were said, cannot support a defamation or libel claim, and that you tell Mr. Stebbins the case or other authority you're relying on. And then Mr. Stebbins, I want you to research that. You're perfectly intelligent. You can look at it. Take a look at it and see if you have any case authority or other authority that would be to the contrary. And if you are of the view that some of these statements won't support a lawsuit, it doesn't mean you're going to not have a case. It just means it gets narrowed down a bit. In the old days, this used to happen during discovery, conversations between the filing of the complaint, and maybe a motion for summary judgment or a settlement or what have you. And now everybody feels, you know, it should be taken up right at the beginning. So it wouldn't be a concession that you have no case. It would just be, all right, let's simplify it and get down to what really counts here. So that's what I'd like you to do.
0:16:02
Stebbins: May I say something?
Judge: Sure. But do you have any problem with doing that?
Stebbins: I will try to speak with him as you suggest, but before I do, I'd like to point out, you mentioned Twombly and Inkball. I should point out that the Ninth Circuit has held that the old standard where a complaint can only be dismissed if it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim, which would entitle him to relief, the Ninth Circuit has held that that standard still applies to pro se cases.
0:16:50
Judge: No, it doesn't. All right. And you want to represent yourself. In my view, you're stuck with whatever the rules are. So bone up on them and the law, because you're not going to get any special consideration because you're pro se. All right. So my view, you've still got to prove up your case. And frankly, why should you want to go forward on a claim that is going to be lost at a later stage in any event? All right. You should figure out at the beginning what kind of case you have, what it's based on, and then you can fight over what it's worth. But my view is that there is no point wasting your valuable time or Mr. Edmondson's chasing something that isn't going anywhere. And he's not arguing you have no case. He's saying that some of these things go beyond what you're entitled to rely on. And you can look at what authority he has, because that authority is going to apply to you, regardless of whether you have a lawyer or not. And you can go back and talk to Ms. Leon about it. All right. And but you have to understand you're in the big leagues here. You filed this case in federal court, not small claims court, and you're not getting any special consideration and particularly because you're not dumb. All right.
0:18:18
Judge: So. All right.
Judge: Now, so I just recommend you do it. And if you can't work it out, fine. He'll spend the money to do it. You'll spend the time and effort to oppose it. And I'll read it and I'll see who's right. All right. I don't have a dog in this fight. It doesn't matter to me who's right or wrong. I just want to save time if possible. All right. So in that regard, motion for judgment on the pleadings.
0:19:00
Judge: Got to think for a minute whether you've got a time frame, Mr. Edmondson.
Judge: I can look at that for a minute.
Redfield: Your Honor, I think it'd be towards to transcribe the video. I think it would be a couple of months. I've got a trial before Judge Klausner in L.A. on July. We're in pretrial prep for that.
0:19:35
Judge: Well, let me just see here. Motion for judgment on the pleadings. After the pleadings are closed, but early enough not to delay trial. a party may move for judgment on the pleadings. So you don't have a specific time to file it. But, you know, it has to be within reason, shall we say. And the next question is what we're going to do about a trial. All right. Now, I'm perfectly happy to set dates now.
0:20:10
Judge: And I have your two separate statements here where one of you... thinks the trial should be in May of next year and the other in March of next year. I think that was in the defendant's statement. In the plaintiff's statement, everybody is saying May. Now, which one of these am I supposed to use?
0:20:42
Stebbins: Your Honor, in my statement, I claimed that the trial date should be decided after motion for summary judgment, and the reason I asked for that... I didn't state this in the statement, but I will say it here, that the reason why I think that's a good idea to wait until after that point to set the trial date is because... What if we file the motions for summary judgment, the court takes forever to rule on them, and then by the time the court rules on them, it's already like two days before trial, and it's too late for me to refund my plane and hotels. Okay, okay.
0:21:26
Judge: First of all, we're going to set... a very orderly logical schedule that goes along with a trial date. All right. Now I have dates that I will propose for any given trial date and see what you folks think about that. But first we have to have a trial date. So right now in the plaintiff statement, you simply want the trial date to be set after dispositive motion? No, because the problem with that is that trial dates get filled up. And if you really want a trial in this case, Mr. Stebbins, within your sort of reasonable lifetime, you're going to need to set it earlier than shortly after the motions are heard, because those dates will all be filled up. And I mean, I hope you have a very long and happy life, but it's probably going to push you back a couple of years after that if you don't grab a date now. So what we need to do is set dates that give enough time between the motion of for dispositive motion and it's positive motion and when you have to start actually preparing for the pre-trial so an even earlier date than you may have in mind so um okay this is what i think then the first question is uh so now uh i gather that uh you don't want to set any deadlines uh at all, in other words, a trial. But it looked like May might be what we could use as a trial date. And so I was trying to, one of the problems having these two statements, trying to reconcile them as to who's got the final word on this. if we're dealing with May, that would be the earliest that I would ordinarily set a trial because things have to be done between now and that date. So March would be too soon. All right. So if I'm looking now at how cases are set, and we were looking at May of 27th, That's not too bad at the moment.
0:24:00
Judge: And let me double check a more recent schedule just to make sure nothing crept in there that I didn't know about. No, I think, oh, well, here's the one problem. There is a case that is set in, where is this? Sorry, give me a second again.
Judge: This is not on the earlier list.
Judge: Oh, yes, it is. All right.
0:24:41
Judge: All right. The reason there may be a problem with a May date is that there is a criminal case that could well go to trial and be long.
Judge: Could be several weeks. It involves a lot of stuff all for, without going into why I've got it occurring in Georgia. And so I, it could mow down pretty much anything in its wake, which would take it potentially to June.
0:25:21
Judge: What I'm thinking is maybe we set a, and take it well into June.
Judge: So I'm thinking maybe a late June trial date might be the way to go. How long were you estimating this case would take if we have a jury trial, if anybody wants a jury trial? And I'm frankly happy to have you have a jury trial.
Judge: What do you think? Maybe five days counting jury selection and deliberation and things of that nature.
Judge: How about you, Mr. Edmondson?
0:26:03
Redfield: I think that's fine, Your Honor.
Judge: All right. So if we're dealing with that, now let me take a look at what dates then we might choose.
Judge: Maybe, I'm sorry, I'm going to just look at a calendar so I don't pick a date that doesn't qualm.
Judge: Well, how about June 28th, just to be safe? Would that work or are you going somewhere?
Stebbins: Until July 2nd.
0:26:36
Judge: I'm sorry? You say June 28th.
Stebbins: Oh, no, I mean, the five-day estimate is not either a commitment or a limitation, just trying to figure out a ballpark because I have to, you know, slot cases into a schedule already in place.
Judge: Are you going somewhere, like, you know, in July? Not that you know of. What about you, Mr. Edmondson?
Redfield: I'm fine, Your Honor. June 28th is good.
Judge: All right. So let's say the trial is set for June 28th of 2027, and we'll put it down as a jury trial of approximately five court days.
0:27:15
Judge: Let me just write the case name down so that I don't miss that until I get a more formal one. Okay. Okay.
Judge: Now, let me tell you what I would ordinarily do in connection with that day. Okay, June 28th. I may have something quickly handy, but no. Okay, give me a second. June 28th.
0:28:00
Judge: Not quite immediate, but pretty fast. I'm going to give you some...
Judge: All right. Now, these are the dates that I would ordinarily give parties who have a June 28 trial date. Again, these dates are intended to account for the concern raised by Mr. Stebbins, which is perfectly legitimate. Okay, and then you can just make a little note to yourself so you kind of have these in mind, and if there's no problem with them, those are the dates I can set. All right, your fact discovery, in other words, non-expert, would be January 1 at 27. Now, that's not the date you have to do discovery. It's just a cutoff.
0:28:41
Judge: Your expert disclosures, and I don't know that you would call an expert. I'm not sure experts come into play here. But if you wanted to call an expert, you would have to disclose their name and their report by January 29. And these are all in 2027. Then if there were a rebuttal expert, that would have to be disclosed in the report provided by February 19. Then your expert discovery would close on March 5. Now, if anyone wanted to file a dispositive motion, they would have to do so approximately three weeks later by March 26.
0:29:22
Judge: That means the hearing on a 35-day briefing schedule, if we just want to take a look at that for a moment.
Clerk: It'd be April 30th, Your Honor.
Judge: April 30. So that just gives you an idea, Mr. Stebbins, because we usually run it from the filing date. But the hearing date is equally important. And particularly, if people try to expand their briefing schedule, then I have to move up the filing date. But assuming a 35-day briefing schedule, which is the default in the local rules, then the filing date would be March 26th. Then a couple of months later would be our pre-trial conference. And we, for whatever reason, have them on Tuesdays. And that would be June 15 at 10 o'clock. And then you would need to meet and confer regarding that. And that just means get together and talk about the various things you have to do for the pretrial conference, which would be part of my pretrial order. And you need to do that by May 10, but it's not a filing date or an appearance. So those are the dates.
0:30:48
Stebbins: Will I get a copy of this on ECF?
Judge: Oh, you will get a formal pretrial order with a lot of draconian instructions about how you have to file things in connection with a pretrial, et cetera, et cetera. All very formal. But this is just to give you a heads up on what I'm thinking of doing to give you a chance to weigh in on it.
Stebbins: Okay. So what about non-expert related discovery? That's the first date that would be about, what are we in?
0:31:22
Judge: We're in May. So that would be about seven months off or so, January 8th.
Stebbins: So that's the cutoff date for layman discovery? Oh, wait.
Judge: No, I gave you the wrong date. It's January 1. That's the cutoff.
Stebbins: Okay. And it'll begin today?
Judge: Immediately. Forthwith.
Stebbins: Okay.
Judge: And...
Stebbins: And the defense has also asked that we arbitrarily limit the amount of discovery we can conduct. And I don't agree with that at all.
0:31:53
Judge: You don't have to. There are default limits in the federal rules.
Judge: But what you don't want to do is ring up a lot of time and money on discovery that you don't need. So just be focused. I understand.
Stebbins: This is 10 counts.
Judge: But it may not be.
Judge: More doesn't mean better. Let me just put it that way. A really solid, good claim. is what you need, all right?
0:32:25
Judge: More is not necessarily better. In fact, more can dilute and people lose the focus of your most important points. You know, it's like you want to stay focused What's a winner here? All right. Not, gee, maybe I can win this, but this is better.
Judge: Just think that way a little bit. All right. People often think the more you say, the better it is. That's not right. Okay. All right. Now, Mr. Edmondson, what do you think about this schedule?
0:32:57
Redfield: Perfect for me, Your Honor.
Judge: All right. Now, those will be the dates.
Judge: Did you get those, Ms. Geiger? I did. Great. Now, I would ordinarily also like to set a status conference date. Oh, and I also have to send you, kicking and screaming or otherwise, to some form of alternative dispute resolution, ADR. and I'm just double-checking, going through, please, next time, just try to do single statement. You can be as disputing as you want in it, but okay. Now, settlement and ADR, plaintiff's position, this is in one of your statements.
0:33:40
Judge: This whole thing with non-dischargeable and bankruptcy and a bunch of stuff, I can't do that, all right? We have... A couple of modalities.
Judge: Three, but you're not going to want to go to private mediation. That costs a lot of money. You would, I think, want to use one of our free services. And they're very, very good. All right.
0:34:24
Judge: And have you ever had another case here, Mr. Stebbins?
Stebbins: I have done a mediation with a magistrate judge, I think, three times before.
Judge: All right. What did you think of that?
Stebbins: It was just like a – I can't really think of it how it was better or worse than the times I've done mediations with the EEOC.
Judge: Okay. So does that mean bad or good?
Stebbins: I don't really know. I've never done a private mediation before. Okay.
0:34:56
Judge: Private mediation, but you know what that means? Yes. Okay. So you know what it means, and you know there are – Thousands, I think, out there. There are a large number of lawyers and often retired judges who hold themselves out as mediators in the private sector. And it can cost quite a bit of money. And given that you were saying that, you know, you would not be able to pay for retaining a lawyer, you probably... They're not going to want to, you know, expend these funds, but assuming that's the case, what we have are two modalities. One is mediation with a mediator on the court's mediation panel. Now, these are people that go through extensive training. The mediator chosen for any given case would be someone who has extensive experience in In the particular field in which the case arises, so in this case, a kind of personal injury from libel, slander, etc.
0:36:15
Judge: And then the other alternative is a settlement conference with a magistrate judge. These are individuals with very impressive CVs. and often, well, they take the time to do these settlements.
Judge: The two modalities are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One could go one way, and probably if they were sequential, it would probably be mediator, mediation panel, in other words, and then to a magistrate judge, but I guess it could be flipped, but it's best to just pick one or the other. Do you have a preference, Mr. Edmondson?
0:36:51
Redfield: Yes, Your Honor. I just had a good experience with the panel mediator where we were able to settle it, kind of a similar sort of case, and it worked out great. So I'd even recommend this mediator as the one to work with.
Judge: Now, I don't know how much flexibility there is in that regard, but if this is someone you think is good and Mr. Stebbins has no reason to argue otherwise, you might agree that one or the other, if you contact the ADR unit and say, if I do refer you, that you're very interested, if possible, in going back, they may have some... I don't know, assignment rule that, you know, not to give one person all the mediations, although they're not getting paid for this, you know. And some of these mediators are actually people who are out there in private mediation. And then much as lawyers devote pro bono time, they get back to the court by doing pro bono work. mediation. So Mr. Stebbins, what do you think about going to a panel mediator? You don't sound like you were overwhelmed with the magistrate judge. How about trying a mediator this time?
0:37:42
Stebbins: I mean, if you order me to go, I will comply with the order, but I just don't see this as being a very settleable case.
0:38:24
Judge: And why is that?
Stebbins: Because let's assume that we go to mediation and then we settle in Sydney Redfields. Gives me his entire life savings, which is probably less than $5,000. And then what? I'm still forced to have to deal with the lifetime of reputational damage that he inflicted on me?
Judge: Possibly. I mean, that's the name of the game. In other words, if you sued Nelson Rockefeller, then he'd pay you for your lifetime of damage. If you're never going to do any better in a trial, why aggravate yourself and possibly lose? Better to see if you can make your best settlement. That's all I'm saying. I do not know how strong your case is, or otherwise I'm not commenting on it.
0:38:56
Judge: If the case goes to trial, I'm going to be here. I don't have to be doing something else during that time. Okay. But just keep in mind, there's no shame in settling. Probably 90% of the cases, if not more, settle. Because it is so aggravating and expensive for many people to go to trial. that it's just not worth it. But if you want to know what the hallmark is of a successful mediation, it's often described as neither side goes away really happy. All right. Now, I'm going to refer you to the mediation section of the court's ADR program. And I can't pick a mediator for you, Mr. Edmondson, but I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy to hear from you if you want to contact them.
0:40:12
Judge: I'm not sure if they have a email address. Ms. Geiger, do you know how they like to be contacted other than us letting them know that the case had been referred?
Clerk: I think they contact the parties.
Judge: They do?
Clerk: Yes.
Judge: All right. At that point then, when they contact you, tell them you'd like to go back to somebody you thought did a great job and see what they say. Okay.
Judge: In any event, even though you're thinking kind of gloomily now, Mr. Stebbins, just keep an open mind, all right? Don't get locked in. Nobody should get locked in. Stay flexible. Those are the people that do the best in life.
0:40:51
Stebbins: Well, I'm not suing for money right now. I'm suing for justice. No, no, I understand.
Judge: And if he agrees to settle with you, in other words, what do you want? Are you looking for a group of citizens? Most civil trials are six people. You're looking for six people you'll never see again to tell you, yes, there was libel.
0:41:26
Judge: I mean, would you feel better if they said that?
Stebbins: I could, I, I,
Stebbins: It's complicated. Well, just think about it. I understand.
Judge: Yes. In other words, he hasn't gotten away with it, if that's what you're thinking. He's had to come to court. He's had to hire a lawyer. And so just, you know, keep that in mind.
Stebbins: He hasn't had to pay for his lawyer, though. He raised a GoFundMe to pay for it. So it's not coming out of his pocket.
Judge: Well, all right. Maybe it's not, but... Maybe you should have a GoFundMe page.
0:42:00
Judge: If you think that's a workable modality, why haven't you as a creative person thought of that?
Stebbins: Because my reputation has been so thoroughly thrashed by the defendant's actions that nobody's going to donate even if I did.
Judge: Okay. All right. Well, you got me, Leon. Okay. In your corner. Or at least helping you out.
Stebbins: I'll do the mediation since you're going to issue the order for me, too.
0:42:33
Judge: All right. Don't waste everybody's time when you go. These folks really try to help the court and the parties. All right. So you can go in like thinking you're going to sit in a corner and hold your breath till you turn blue. But don't do that. At least keep an open mind. Now, I'm going back. So I set the dates I set and I didn't set a deadline to amend. Are you planning on amending your complaint?
Stebbins: Well. As of right now, not yet. But if the motion for judgment on the pleadings shows a deficiency that could be cured by amendment, I do intend to seek leave there.
0:43:06
Judge: Okay. And that would be separate. Okay. But for now, I'll just set a deadline about three months off.
Judge: And it's not dropped yet. All right. Let's say that you don't change your complaint. Okay. And that you go forward with either as it is now or slightly fewer claims, possibly. And then let's say during discovery, you find something out you didn't know before. You could show then good cause to change your complaint after this date. It's not a total dead, but you do have to at least make some reasonable showing. So we're at May 1.
0:43:51
Judge: All right. Let's just say I'll give you August 10. All right.
Judge: Okay. So that's just, you know, as I say, this is if nothing changes in what you know about the case, then you should amend by then. All right. And if I, for example, hear a motion for judgment on the pleading, so if you can't work it out and say, okay, fine, then if I hear it and I grant any part of it and it looks like you could fix it, then I would give you a separate deadline. Okay. But that deadline might be I don't know where it'll be because Mr. Edmondson doesn't know when he's going to move. But it can't be too, too close to trial, Mr. Edmondson, or it'll be deemed untimely. Okay, so then I want to do a status conference. And thank goodness there aren't a lot of other case management conferences sitting in the wing saying, why don't they wrap this one up? All right, so we're going to wrap it up pretty soon because we've been talking for a long time. Let's see. What did I say again? Hang on a second.
0:45:15
Judge: Let me go back to the dispositive motion.
Judge: All right. I'm going to set in this date, if it turns out as you get closer to it, for one reason, it's not workable. for you, one or the other, few or both.
Judge: Please submit a joint request or stipulation to change the date and show me good cause why it should be. And I'm amenable to changing that date. Let's just say March 12.
0:45:55
Judge: Let me change that.
Judge: March, sorry.
Judge: I'm going to say March 19 of 2027 with a joint statement due by the week before, which would be March 12.
0:46:30
Judge: Okay.
Judge: And as I say, it's so far off that there may be something that comes up that makes that less reasonable than otherwise, but I can't picture it at the moment. Okay, now let me find out, Mr. Stebbins, so your lawsuit, do you have any questions about what we've done today or anything else?
Stebbins: There's, let me see, let me check my notes here real quick. Okay.
0:47:02
Stebbins: Yes. Imagine if we do this – once we start discovery, if there's a dispute in the discovery responses and I need to file a motion to help discovery, how quickly will those motions be resolved, whether by you or a magistrate judge? Because I'm not exactly – I'll admit I'm pretty frustrated with the fact that it takes months and months and months just to rule on the simplest of things. Like, for example, the motions for partial summary judgment, you struck them for procedural problems. But it took you like five months to do that. When if you were going to strike it for a procedural problem, you should have noticed that. I feel like you should have noticed that immediately.
0:47:34
Judge: Yeah, well, you're probably right. Although you did have a lot of different things you raised and there were some number of problems. There were a lot of things going on at the time, and I would expect that a ruling on a discovery dispute, first of all, per my standing orders, will get referred ultimately, and so I shouldn't say ultimately, rather quickly. In almost every instance, it will be referred to a magistrate judge. Don't interrupt me, Mr. Stebbins, or next time we'll have to make this an in-person hearing and you can come out here and be in the courtroom. Okay, so you asked me how long is it going to take complaining about how things took before. Sorry about that. Hopefully it won't happen again and it should be faster by quite a bit. All right, that's all I can tell you.
0:48:09
Stebbins: Well, can I say something now?
Stebbins: Sure. I asked you to. You say that it took that long because you had a lot going on. However, this is far from an isolated incident. It honestly seems to me that every case I'm involved in Every church, every district, it always takes months and months to rule on simple things to the point where I often have to go to the Court of Appeals in a petition for a writ of mandamus just to get a ruling on the informopoveris application.
0:48:47
Judge: I've heard to you that maybe it isn't when it's everybody doing it the same way that there's something you're doing that may create that.
0:49:24
Stebbins: I am aware of that. The problem with that, however, I guess I absolutely am aware that there might be something on my end that's causing it.
Stebbins: The problem is nobody seems to be willing to just sit down and tell me what the problem is so that I can correct it.
Judge: Okay. Well, you know, you're filing a lot of lawsuits, Mr. Stebbins, and you don't have a lawyer to take the case. And there are often times When lawyers represent plaintiffs on a contingency and they don't collect anything, until there's a judgment. And what you're saying is you're bringing a lot of lawsuits that aren't worth much, and therefore you can't find a lawyer to spend the time to take it.
0:49:58
Judge: I can't really help you with that. I offered to see what I could do with the pro bono office, and you say you've explored that already. So, you know, I will do the best we can to rule. You delayed things an awful lot arguing about personal jurisdiction and there was a ruling earlier I think may have been a magistrate judge ruling that got things rolling in a way that maybe slowed things down a bit. But, and then as you say, you would have liked to get a faster ruling from me. And I recognize that and we'll try to get those out sooner. But there's only, this isn't a perfect world. All right.
0:50:38
Judge: Litigation is tough. It's hard. It's expensive. It's aggravating. And that's why a lot of people don't engage in it. Okay. Mr. Edmondson, any questions?
Redfield: No, Your Honor.
Judge: Okay.
Judge: Did you think of something else, Mr. Stebbins?
0:51:11
Stebbins: I did. Are you saying that judges are delaying? Mr. Stebbins, you've heard whatever I've said.
Judge: All right. This is not a conversation. Okay. You want to have a conversation, find a friend and go to a coffee shop. This is a legal hearing. And I have indulged as much as I can. in that process. But I'm not going to sit here and start saying, you say, I say, you said, and have to justify myself to you. All right? You got a concession out of me that things could have run faster. That's the best you're going to do. All right. This case is now concluded. We're in recess.
0:51:43
Judge: Thank you.
Clerk: Court is in recess.
Judge: Thank you.
0:00:03
Clerk: So the next case we'll be calling is Stebbins versus Redfield.
Clerk: Mr. Stebbins, do you have access to video?
Stebbins: Yes, I do. And it was showing a minute ago. Let me see. There we go. There you are.
0:00:39
Clerk: Okay, great. Hold on just one moment.
Clerk: Proceedings are being recorded by the court. Any other recording of this proceeding, either by video, audio, including screenshots, or other copying of the hearing is strictly prohibited.
Clerk: I'll let the judge know we're ready.
0:01:12
Clerk: Okay. Okay.
Clerk: Okay. Calling civil case number 23-321, David A. Stebbins v. Sidney Redfield.
Clerk: Will the parties please state your appearances, starting with the plaintiff.
Stebbins: My name is David Stebbins. I'm representing myself pro se.
Judge: All right. Good morning, Mr. Stebbins.
Redfield: Good morning, Your Honor. Kurt Edmondson for the defendant.
0:01:43
Judge: Thank you. A couple of things here. As you know, this is the initial case management conference. And I received two statements from you, which our local rules do allow for. But I would think that in the future, if you're going to be asked to file another statement, either in connection with the status conference or otherwise, that you do submit one and just have your respective positions set forth. In other words, joint doesn't necessarily mean people agree with everything, but it's just jointly submitted. There are times when I would say, It would be very difficult for, let's say, counsel for one party to deal with a pro se litigant on the other side. But it just seemed to me that Mr. Stebbins is sophisticated enough that that could be perhaps worked out between you. Also, I couldn't really see a major difference between these two statements. It was almost like you just each filed kind of a joint statement. But there are a couple of things that neither of you did that should be done in the future and should have been done this time. All right. One is neither of you gave me a Chambers copy. All right. Please read my standing orders. I'm old enough, so I'm still dealing with paper. All right. They're all manner of judges that you wouldn't have to give Chambers copies to, and they love to look at everything online. That's not me. All right. So please do. In the future, you have to give me a chambers copy or you're going to start getting sort of nasty orders telling you that bad things could happen if you don't give me one. All right. The next thing is that neither of you put on your statement the date of the conference and the time. It's important to do that, one, so I don't have to go around trying to figure out when this is going to be heard, and two, you'd be surprised how often one party or the other misunderstood what the date and time was, and it comes to the fore if you put that on. Any appearance you're going to be making, if it's a hearing on a motion or otherwise, be sure to put the date and time.
0:04:09
Judge: Then another matter. Now this, council having, I guess, read the local rules of this district in the defendant's statement, submitted everything on numbered page paper.
Stebbins: It's not that I don't, it's not that I didn't read that. It's just that my word processor, for whatever reason, doesn't even allow me to do that. The software that I use. And when I downloaded the format from the defendant's email, from the defense counselor's email, it had the numbered lines on the left side, the email attachment did. But then when I downloaded that, those left sides were just gone and I don't have the ability to put them back.
0:04:48
Judge: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Stebbins. Can I ask you not to interrupt me?
Stebbins: I'm sorry, ma'am.
Judge: Okay. What I was going to say is that you should submit on numbered paper. If your program does not allow for it and you're going to be filing your own individual documents, documents, Mr. Stebbins, then I would just suggest you look to see if you can handle this through an alternative program. And to the extent that you are submitting something that's a jointly filed document, it can be then given to Mr. Edmondson to take the laboring or in printing it and then it'll be on numbered paper. The reason for the requirement in the local rules, and I wasn't going to accuse you of not reading them, but in any event, the reason for it is often one wants to make reference to a particular part of a filing. The easiest way to do that is by page and line numbers. And that's why it's important to do that if you can. Now, in any event, let's get back to this.
0:06:11
Judge: Mr. Stebbins originally was concerned that this court didn't have personal jurisdiction, but that is not like subject matter jurisdiction, which can't be waived. Personal jurisdiction can't be. And this defendant said, I'm perfectly happy to be in the Northern District, so that's fine. Uh, and, uh, then, uh, the defendant says they are going to move for judgment on the pleadings.
Judge: Uh, they did answer, but, uh, then the question would be, uh, you can answer and then essentially make the same arguments one could make, uh, if they filed a motion to dismiss instead of an answer. What were you thinking about in that regard, Mr. Edmondson? What particular deficiency did you think might give rise to a motion for judgment?
0:06:54
Redfield: Yes, Your Honor. Kurt Edmondson for the defendant. Sure, that's okay. What I would do, and I'm glad you brought this up, is I would make a transcript of the YouTube video in question. It's about an hour long. and also provide the video. And that's incorporated by reference into the pleadings by Mr. Stebbins' allegations, and then go through the points of defamation, alleged defamation, and see if we can narrow this down by determining whether some of those are just statements of opinion, qualified, you know, their factual statements, you know, things like that, that we can take judicial notice of. Just sort of clean up the pleadings.
0:07:42
Judge: Okay, hold on, Mr. Stemmons. All right, now, a motion for judgment on the pleadings. much like a motion to dismiss, assuming it's based on Rule 12b-6 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, is limited to the face of the complaint plus documents that have been essentially relied on in the complaint or that the court can take judicial notice of.
0:08:21
Judge: And so there are limitations. Mr. Edmondson has identified why he feels the court can consider the video even though it wasn't attached, let's say, to the complaint. And he may be right about that. I'm not going to rule on that right now. But let's say he is. All right. The dispute that's being made here is whether or not some of the statements really aren't actionable. All right. In other words, if somebody is just making, you know, kind of their own personal opinion, I think this person is fill in the blank. That may not be actionable versus this person is fill in the blank. All right. So what I'm thinking, though, is that it may be worth your talking to each other. Have you tried to do that a little bit? And what happened when you tried to do it?
0:09:30
Redfield: I'm happy to talk with Mr. Steffens.
Stebbins: Well, I mean, I don't know. Just so you know, I did try to talk to the defendant before he lawyered up, and the defendant was completely unamenable. Okay, hold on.
Judge: Hold on. I mean, that's party to party. But now we have an intermediary. It would be nice if you had a lawyer, Mr. Stebbins. And did you try and retain anyone? Oh, he's putting fingers together showing money. Okay. Well, I don't know what your financial circumstances are. We do have, through the San Francisco Bar Association, a pro bono lawyer program. It doesn't mean you would necessarily get a free lawyer, but it does mean if you want to contact them, they will talk to you and take a look at whether you might be eligible. And if so... Whether it's worth them trying to see if a law firm as part of their sort of civic duty would be willing to represent you. Would that be something you'd be interested in?
0:10:47
Stebbins: I have actually contacted the pro bono office multiple times this case. Mostly what they're doing is they're taking a lawyer whose first name is Deborah. I don't even know her last name. And she's basically advising me on my pro se plans while I remain pro se myself.
Judge: All right, but they're helping you.
Stebbins: Yes.
Judge: Okay, that's fine then. I recently, recent, I don't know, Tempest Fugit, let's say in the last couple of years, that'll be recent.
Judge: I did have a pro se trial in which the pro se plaintiff was being counseled throughout by that office. And her name is Deborah Leon. And she was the head of the pro bono project here. So you have the chief person. And they counseled that person all the way through. And so that may be what she has assessed as the best way to handle it. Now, let me tell you what's being done here, okay? Mr. Edmondson is raising a particular legal question. My understanding, and I'll confirm this with him, is that he is not saying that every statement you say his client made is a statement that you cannot bring a defamation claim based on, but that a number of them you cannot as a matter of law. Now, let me see if I'm right or wrong on that.
0:12:20
Redfield: Your Honor, Kurt Edmondson for the defendant. It's okay. You don't have to keep saying it. Okay.
Redfield: All right. Your aggregate and whether it's done by motion for general judgment on the pleadings or an alternate on motion to strike particular allegations, I think the result is the same. All right.
Judge: The idea that some may be okay, but others aren't is kind of your thinking, right?
Redfield: Yeah, yeah. We got 10 claims, but it's all defamation.
Judge: All right.
0:12:55
Judge: In the old days, okay, plaintiffs in bringing a claim in federal court didn't have to say much about it in order to go forward on their lawsuit, right? In more recent years, in two cases in particular that everybody refers to as Iqbal and Twombly, all right, the federal courts were then required to screen essentially complaints to see whether if everything that the person said there was enough to... if you would have called a witness to say at trial, what was in there, would it be enough to actually go to a jury on? In other words, in the old days trial, you had to call a witness. Nope. Put your finger down.
0:13:47
Stebbins: I understand.
Judge: All right. But I'll just keep going just to clarify. And then if there's any question, fine. in the old days, and that continues even today for both trial and summary judgment. For summary judgment, you did not have to call the witness, but you had to put in declarations or other admissible evidence for a summary judgment to show that you could win. And then you didn't ever have to do that for your complaint before. You kind of said, I'm the plaintiff. This person did me wrong. I had an injury and that's it. And now you have to actually put down the facts, even though it doesn't have to be under oath and you don't have to call a witness, but you got to put in the facts. that support your claim as if you called the witness, you could go to a jury on it. So what I suggest is this, all right, that the two of you talk, that Mr. Edmondson, you tell Mr. Stebbins which particular statements attributed to your client in your legal view cannot support
0:15:16
Judge: even if they were said, cannot support a defamation or libel claim, and that you tell Mr. Stebbins the case or other authority you're relying on. And then Mr. Stebbins, I want you to research that. You're perfectly intelligent. You can look at it. Take a look at it and see if you have any case authority or other authority that would be to the contrary. And if you are of the view that some of these statements won't support a lawsuit, it doesn't mean you're going to not have a case. It just means it gets narrowed down a bit. In the old days, this used to happen during discovery, conversations between the filing of the complaint, and maybe a motion for summary judgment or a settlement or what have you. And now everybody feels, you know, it should be taken up right at the beginning. So it wouldn't be a concession that you have no case. It would just be, all right, let's simplify it and get down to what really counts here. So that's what I'd like you to do.
0:16:02
Stebbins: May I say something?
Judge: Sure. But do you have any problem with doing that?
Stebbins: I will try to speak with him as you suggest, but before I do, I'd like to point out, you mentioned Twombly and Inkball. I should point out that the Ninth Circuit has held that the old standard where a complaint can only be dismissed if it appears beyond doubt that the plaintiff can prove no set of facts in support of his claim, which would entitle him to relief, the Ninth Circuit has held that that standard still applies to pro se cases.
0:16:50
Judge: No, it doesn't. All right. And you want to represent yourself. In my view, you're stuck with whatever the rules are. So bone up on them and the law, because you're not going to get any special consideration because you're pro se. All right. So my view, you've still got to prove up your case. And frankly, why should you want to go forward on a claim that is going to be lost at a later stage in any event? All right. You should figure out at the beginning what kind of case you have, what it's based on, and then you can fight over what it's worth. But my view is that there is no point wasting your valuable time or Mr. Edmondson's chasing something that isn't going anywhere. And he's not arguing you have no case. He's saying that some of these things go beyond what you're entitled to rely on. And you can look at what authority he has, because that authority is going to apply to you, regardless of whether you have a lawyer or not. And you can go back and talk to Ms. Leon about it. All right. And but you have to understand you're in the big leagues here. You filed this case in federal court, not small claims court, and you're not getting any special consideration and particularly because you're not dumb. All right.
0:18:18
Judge: So. All right.
Judge: Now, so I just recommend you do it. And if you can't work it out, fine. He'll spend the money to do it. You'll spend the time and effort to oppose it. And I'll read it and I'll see who's right. All right. I don't have a dog in this fight. It doesn't matter to me who's right or wrong. I just want to save time if possible. All right. So in that regard, motion for judgment on the pleadings.
0:19:00
Judge: Got to think for a minute whether you've got a time frame, Mr. Edmondson.
Judge: I can look at that for a minute.
Redfield: Your Honor, I think it'd be towards to transcribe the video. I think it would be a couple of months. I've got a trial before Judge Klausner in L.A. on July. We're in pretrial prep for that.
0:19:35
Judge: Well, let me just see here. Motion for judgment on the pleadings. After the pleadings are closed, but early enough not to delay trial. a party may move for judgment on the pleadings. So you don't have a specific time to file it. But, you know, it has to be within reason, shall we say. And the next question is what we're going to do about a trial. All right. Now, I'm perfectly happy to set dates now.
0:20:10
Judge: And I have your two separate statements here where one of you... thinks the trial should be in May of next year and the other in March of next year. I think that was in the defendant's statement. In the plaintiff's statement, everybody is saying May. Now, which one of these am I supposed to use?
0:20:42
Stebbins: Your Honor, in my statement, I claimed that the trial date should be decided after motion for summary judgment, and the reason I asked for that... I didn't state this in the statement, but I will say it here, that the reason why I think that's a good idea to wait until after that point to set the trial date is because... What if we file the motions for summary judgment, the court takes forever to rule on them, and then by the time the court rules on them, it's already like two days before trial, and it's too late for me to refund my plane and hotels. Okay, okay.
0:21:26
Judge: First of all, we're going to set... a very orderly logical schedule that goes along with a trial date. All right. Now I have dates that I will propose for any given trial date and see what you folks think about that. But first we have to have a trial date. So right now in the plaintiff statement, you simply want the trial date to be set after dispositive motion? No, because the problem with that is that trial dates get filled up. And if you really want a trial in this case, Mr. Stebbins, within your sort of reasonable lifetime, you're going to need to set it earlier than shortly after the motions are heard, because those dates will all be filled up. And I mean, I hope you have a very long and happy life, but it's probably going to push you back a couple of years after that if you don't grab a date now. So what we need to do is set dates that give enough time between the motion of for dispositive motion and it's positive motion and when you have to start actually preparing for the pre-trial so an even earlier date than you may have in mind so um okay this is what i think then the first question is uh so now uh i gather that uh you don't want to set any deadlines uh at all, in other words, a trial. But it looked like May might be what we could use as a trial date. And so I was trying to, one of the problems having these two statements, trying to reconcile them as to who's got the final word on this. if we're dealing with May, that would be the earliest that I would ordinarily set a trial because things have to be done between now and that date. So March would be too soon. All right. So if I'm looking now at how cases are set, and we were looking at May of 27th, That's not too bad at the moment.
0:24:00
Judge: And let me double check a more recent schedule just to make sure nothing crept in there that I didn't know about. No, I think, oh, well, here's the one problem. There is a case that is set in, where is this? Sorry, give me a second again.
Judge: This is not on the earlier list.
Judge: Oh, yes, it is. All right.
0:24:41
Judge: All right. The reason there may be a problem with a May date is that there is a criminal case that could well go to trial and be long.
Judge: Could be several weeks. It involves a lot of stuff all for, without going into why I've got it occurring in Georgia. And so I, it could mow down pretty much anything in its wake, which would take it potentially to June.
0:25:21
Judge: What I'm thinking is maybe we set a, and take it well into June.
Judge: So I'm thinking maybe a late June trial date might be the way to go. How long were you estimating this case would take if we have a jury trial, if anybody wants a jury trial? And I'm frankly happy to have you have a jury trial.
Judge: What do you think? Maybe five days counting jury selection and deliberation and things of that nature.
Judge: How about you, Mr. Edmondson?
0:26:03
Redfield: I think that's fine, Your Honor.
Judge: All right. So if we're dealing with that, now let me take a look at what dates then we might choose.
Judge: Maybe, I'm sorry, I'm going to just look at a calendar so I don't pick a date that doesn't qualm.
Judge: Well, how about June 28th, just to be safe? Would that work or are you going somewhere?
Stebbins: Until July 2nd.
0:26:36
Judge: I'm sorry? You say June 28th.
Stebbins: Oh, no, I mean, the five-day estimate is not either a commitment or a limitation, just trying to figure out a ballpark because I have to, you know, slot cases into a schedule already in place.
Judge: Are you going somewhere, like, you know, in July? Not that you know of. What about you, Mr. Edmondson?
Redfield: I'm fine, Your Honor. June 28th is good.
Judge: All right. So let's say the trial is set for June 28th of 2027, and we'll put it down as a jury trial of approximately five court days.
0:27:15
Judge: Let me just write the case name down so that I don't miss that until I get a more formal one. Okay. Okay.
Judge: Now, let me tell you what I would ordinarily do in connection with that day. Okay, June 28th. I may have something quickly handy, but no. Okay, give me a second. June 28th.
0:28:00
Judge: Not quite immediate, but pretty fast. I'm going to give you some...
Judge: All right. Now, these are the dates that I would ordinarily give parties who have a June 28 trial date. Again, these dates are intended to account for the concern raised by Mr. Stebbins, which is perfectly legitimate. Okay, and then you can just make a little note to yourself so you kind of have these in mind, and if there's no problem with them, those are the dates I can set. All right, your fact discovery, in other words, non-expert, would be January 1 at 27. Now, that's not the date you have to do discovery. It's just a cutoff.
0:28:41
Judge: Your expert disclosures, and I don't know that you would call an expert. I'm not sure experts come into play here. But if you wanted to call an expert, you would have to disclose their name and their report by January 29. And these are all in 2027. Then if there were a rebuttal expert, that would have to be disclosed in the report provided by February 19. Then your expert discovery would close on March 5. Now, if anyone wanted to file a dispositive motion, they would have to do so approximately three weeks later by March 26.
0:29:22
Judge: That means the hearing on a 35-day briefing schedule, if we just want to take a look at that for a moment.
Clerk: It'd be April 30th, Your Honor.
Judge: April 30. So that just gives you an idea, Mr. Stebbins, because we usually run it from the filing date. But the hearing date is equally important. And particularly, if people try to expand their briefing schedule, then I have to move up the filing date. But assuming a 35-day briefing schedule, which is the default in the local rules, then the filing date would be March 26th. Then a couple of months later would be our pre-trial conference. And we, for whatever reason, have them on Tuesdays. And that would be June 15 at 10 o'clock. And then you would need to meet and confer regarding that. And that just means get together and talk about the various things you have to do for the pretrial conference, which would be part of my pretrial order. And you need to do that by May 10, but it's not a filing date or an appearance. So those are the dates.
0:30:48
Stebbins: Will I get a copy of this on ECF?
Judge: Oh, you will get a formal pretrial order with a lot of draconian instructions about how you have to file things in connection with a pretrial, et cetera, et cetera. All very formal. But this is just to give you a heads up on what I'm thinking of doing to give you a chance to weigh in on it.
Stebbins: Okay. So what about non-expert related discovery? That's the first date that would be about, what are we in?
0:31:22
Judge: We're in May. So that would be about seven months off or so, January 8th.
Stebbins: So that's the cutoff date for layman discovery? Oh, wait.
Judge: No, I gave you the wrong date. It's January 1. That's the cutoff.
Stebbins: Okay. And it'll begin today?
Judge: Immediately. Forthwith.
Stebbins: Okay.
Judge: And...
Stebbins: And the defense has also asked that we arbitrarily limit the amount of discovery we can conduct. And I don't agree with that at all.
0:31:53
Judge: You don't have to. There are default limits in the federal rules.
Judge: But what you don't want to do is ring up a lot of time and money on discovery that you don't need. So just be focused. I understand.
Stebbins: This is 10 counts.
Judge: But it may not be.
Judge: More doesn't mean better. Let me just put it that way. A really solid, good claim. is what you need, all right?
0:32:25
Judge: More is not necessarily better. In fact, more can dilute and people lose the focus of your most important points. You know, it's like you want to stay focused What's a winner here? All right. Not, gee, maybe I can win this, but this is better.
Judge: Just think that way a little bit. All right. People often think the more you say, the better it is. That's not right. Okay. All right. Now, Mr. Edmondson, what do you think about this schedule?
0:32:57
Redfield: Perfect for me, Your Honor.
Judge: All right. Now, those will be the dates.
Judge: Did you get those, Ms. Geiger? I did. Great. Now, I would ordinarily also like to set a status conference date. Oh, and I also have to send you, kicking and screaming or otherwise, to some form of alternative dispute resolution, ADR. and I'm just double-checking, going through, please, next time, just try to do single statement. You can be as disputing as you want in it, but okay. Now, settlement and ADR, plaintiff's position, this is in one of your statements.
0:33:40
Judge: This whole thing with non-dischargeable and bankruptcy and a bunch of stuff, I can't do that, all right? We have... A couple of modalities.
Judge: Three, but you're not going to want to go to private mediation. That costs a lot of money. You would, I think, want to use one of our free services. And they're very, very good. All right.
0:34:24
Judge: And have you ever had another case here, Mr. Stebbins?
Stebbins: I have done a mediation with a magistrate judge, I think, three times before.
Judge: All right. What did you think of that?
Stebbins: It was just like a – I can't really think of it how it was better or worse than the times I've done mediations with the EEOC.
Judge: Okay. So does that mean bad or good?
Stebbins: I don't really know. I've never done a private mediation before. Okay.
0:34:56
Judge: Private mediation, but you know what that means? Yes. Okay. So you know what it means, and you know there are – Thousands, I think, out there. There are a large number of lawyers and often retired judges who hold themselves out as mediators in the private sector. And it can cost quite a bit of money. And given that you were saying that, you know, you would not be able to pay for retaining a lawyer, you probably... They're not going to want to, you know, expend these funds, but assuming that's the case, what we have are two modalities. One is mediation with a mediator on the court's mediation panel. Now, these are people that go through extensive training. The mediator chosen for any given case would be someone who has extensive experience in In the particular field in which the case arises, so in this case, a kind of personal injury from libel, slander, etc.
0:36:15
Judge: And then the other alternative is a settlement conference with a magistrate judge. These are individuals with very impressive CVs. and often, well, they take the time to do these settlements.
Judge: The two modalities are not necessarily mutually exclusive. One could go one way, and probably if they were sequential, it would probably be mediator, mediation panel, in other words, and then to a magistrate judge, but I guess it could be flipped, but it's best to just pick one or the other. Do you have a preference, Mr. Edmondson?
0:36:51
Redfield: Yes, Your Honor. I just had a good experience with the panel mediator where we were able to settle it, kind of a similar sort of case, and it worked out great. So I'd even recommend this mediator as the one to work with.
Judge: Now, I don't know how much flexibility there is in that regard, but if this is someone you think is good and Mr. Stebbins has no reason to argue otherwise, you might agree that one or the other, if you contact the ADR unit and say, if I do refer you, that you're very interested, if possible, in going back, they may have some... I don't know, assignment rule that, you know, not to give one person all the mediations, although they're not getting paid for this, you know. And some of these mediators are actually people who are out there in private mediation. And then much as lawyers devote pro bono time, they get back to the court by doing pro bono work. mediation. So Mr. Stebbins, what do you think about going to a panel mediator? You don't sound like you were overwhelmed with the magistrate judge. How about trying a mediator this time?
0:37:42
Stebbins: I mean, if you order me to go, I will comply with the order, but I just don't see this as being a very settleable case.
0:38:24
Judge: And why is that?
Stebbins: Because let's assume that we go to mediation and then we settle in Sydney Redfields. Gives me his entire life savings, which is probably less than $5,000. And then what? I'm still forced to have to deal with the lifetime of reputational damage that he inflicted on me?
Judge: Possibly. I mean, that's the name of the game. In other words, if you sued Nelson Rockefeller, then he'd pay you for your lifetime of damage. If you're never going to do any better in a trial, why aggravate yourself and possibly lose? Better to see if you can make your best settlement. That's all I'm saying. I do not know how strong your case is, or otherwise I'm not commenting on it.
0:38:56
Judge: If the case goes to trial, I'm going to be here. I don't have to be doing something else during that time. Okay. But just keep in mind, there's no shame in settling. Probably 90% of the cases, if not more, settle. Because it is so aggravating and expensive for many people to go to trial. that it's just not worth it. But if you want to know what the hallmark is of a successful mediation, it's often described as neither side goes away really happy. All right. Now, I'm going to refer you to the mediation section of the court's ADR program. And I can't pick a mediator for you, Mr. Edmondson, but I'm sure they'd be perfectly happy to hear from you if you want to contact them.
0:40:12
Judge: I'm not sure if they have a email address. Ms. Geiger, do you know how they like to be contacted other than us letting them know that the case had been referred?
Clerk: I think they contact the parties.
Judge: They do?
Clerk: Yes.
Judge: All right. At that point then, when they contact you, tell them you'd like to go back to somebody you thought did a great job and see what they say. Okay.
Judge: In any event, even though you're thinking kind of gloomily now, Mr. Stebbins, just keep an open mind, all right? Don't get locked in. Nobody should get locked in. Stay flexible. Those are the people that do the best in life.
0:40:51
Stebbins: Well, I'm not suing for money right now. I'm suing for justice. No, no, I understand.
Judge: And if he agrees to settle with you, in other words, what do you want? Are you looking for a group of citizens? Most civil trials are six people. You're looking for six people you'll never see again to tell you, yes, there was libel.
0:41:26
Judge: I mean, would you feel better if they said that?
Stebbins: I could, I, I,
Stebbins: It's complicated. Well, just think about it. I understand.
Judge: Yes. In other words, he hasn't gotten away with it, if that's what you're thinking. He's had to come to court. He's had to hire a lawyer. And so just, you know, keep that in mind.
Stebbins: He hasn't had to pay for his lawyer, though. He raised a GoFundMe to pay for it. So it's not coming out of his pocket.
Judge: Well, all right. Maybe it's not, but... Maybe you should have a GoFundMe page.
0:42:00
Judge: If you think that's a workable modality, why haven't you as a creative person thought of that?
Stebbins: Because my reputation has been so thoroughly thrashed by the defendant's actions that nobody's going to donate even if I did.
Judge: Okay. All right. Well, you got me, Leon. Okay. In your corner. Or at least helping you out.
Stebbins: I'll do the mediation since you're going to issue the order for me, too.
0:42:33
Judge: All right. Don't waste everybody's time when you go. These folks really try to help the court and the parties. All right. So you can go in like thinking you're going to sit in a corner and hold your breath till you turn blue. But don't do that. At least keep an open mind. Now, I'm going back. So I set the dates I set and I didn't set a deadline to amend. Are you planning on amending your complaint?
Stebbins: Well. As of right now, not yet. But if the motion for judgment on the pleadings shows a deficiency that could be cured by amendment, I do intend to seek leave there.
0:43:06
Judge: Okay. And that would be separate. Okay. But for now, I'll just set a deadline about three months off.
Judge: And it's not dropped yet. All right. Let's say that you don't change your complaint. Okay. And that you go forward with either as it is now or slightly fewer claims, possibly. And then let's say during discovery, you find something out you didn't know before. You could show then good cause to change your complaint after this date. It's not a total dead, but you do have to at least make some reasonable showing. So we're at May 1.
0:43:51
Judge: All right. Let's just say I'll give you August 10. All right.
Judge: Okay. So that's just, you know, as I say, this is if nothing changes in what you know about the case, then you should amend by then. All right. And if I, for example, hear a motion for judgment on the pleading, so if you can't work it out and say, okay, fine, then if I hear it and I grant any part of it and it looks like you could fix it, then I would give you a separate deadline. Okay. But that deadline might be I don't know where it'll be because Mr. Edmondson doesn't know when he's going to move. But it can't be too, too close to trial, Mr. Edmondson, or it'll be deemed untimely. Okay, so then I want to do a status conference. And thank goodness there aren't a lot of other case management conferences sitting in the wing saying, why don't they wrap this one up? All right, so we're going to wrap it up pretty soon because we've been talking for a long time. Let's see. What did I say again? Hang on a second.
0:45:15
Judge: Let me go back to the dispositive motion.
Judge: All right. I'm going to set in this date, if it turns out as you get closer to it, for one reason, it's not workable. for you, one or the other, few or both.
Judge: Please submit a joint request or stipulation to change the date and show me good cause why it should be. And I'm amenable to changing that date. Let's just say March 12.
0:45:55
Judge: Let me change that.
Judge: March, sorry.
Judge: I'm going to say March 19 of 2027 with a joint statement due by the week before, which would be March 12.
0:46:30
Judge: Okay.
Judge: And as I say, it's so far off that there may be something that comes up that makes that less reasonable than otherwise, but I can't picture it at the moment. Okay, now let me find out, Mr. Stebbins, so your lawsuit, do you have any questions about what we've done today or anything else?
Stebbins: There's, let me see, let me check my notes here real quick. Okay.
0:47:02
Stebbins: Yes. Imagine if we do this – once we start discovery, if there's a dispute in the discovery responses and I need to file a motion to help discovery, how quickly will those motions be resolved, whether by you or a magistrate judge? Because I'm not exactly – I'll admit I'm pretty frustrated with the fact that it takes months and months and months just to rule on the simplest of things. Like, for example, the motions for partial summary judgment, you struck them for procedural problems. But it took you like five months to do that. When if you were going to strike it for a procedural problem, you should have noticed that. I feel like you should have noticed that immediately.
0:47:34
Judge: Yeah, well, you're probably right. Although you did have a lot of different things you raised and there were some number of problems. There were a lot of things going on at the time, and I would expect that a ruling on a discovery dispute, first of all, per my standing orders, will get referred ultimately, and so I shouldn't say ultimately, rather quickly. In almost every instance, it will be referred to a magistrate judge. Don't interrupt me, Mr. Stebbins, or next time we'll have to make this an in-person hearing and you can come out here and be in the courtroom. Okay, so you asked me how long is it going to take complaining about how things took before. Sorry about that. Hopefully it won't happen again and it should be faster by quite a bit. All right, that's all I can tell you.
0:48:09
Stebbins: Well, can I say something now?
Stebbins: Sure. I asked you to. You say that it took that long because you had a lot going on. However, this is far from an isolated incident. It honestly seems to me that every case I'm involved in Every church, every district, it always takes months and months to rule on simple things to the point where I often have to go to the Court of Appeals in a petition for a writ of mandamus just to get a ruling on the informopoveris application.
0:48:47
Judge: I've heard to you that maybe it isn't when it's everybody doing it the same way that there's something you're doing that may create that.
0:49:24
Stebbins: I am aware of that. The problem with that, however, I guess I absolutely am aware that there might be something on my end that's causing it.
Stebbins: The problem is nobody seems to be willing to just sit down and tell me what the problem is so that I can correct it.
Judge: Okay. Well, you know, you're filing a lot of lawsuits, Mr. Stebbins, and you don't have a lawyer to take the case. And there are often times When lawyers represent plaintiffs on a contingency and they don't collect anything, until there's a judgment. And what you're saying is you're bringing a lot of lawsuits that aren't worth much, and therefore you can't find a lawyer to spend the time to take it.
0:49:58
Judge: I can't really help you with that. I offered to see what I could do with the pro bono office, and you say you've explored that already. So, you know, I will do the best we can to rule. You delayed things an awful lot arguing about personal jurisdiction and there was a ruling earlier I think may have been a magistrate judge ruling that got things rolling in a way that maybe slowed things down a bit. But, and then as you say, you would have liked to get a faster ruling from me. And I recognize that and we'll try to get those out sooner. But there's only, this isn't a perfect world. All right.
0:50:38
Judge: Litigation is tough. It's hard. It's expensive. It's aggravating. And that's why a lot of people don't engage in it. Okay. Mr. Edmondson, any questions?
Redfield: No, Your Honor.
Judge: Okay.
Judge: Did you think of something else, Mr. Stebbins?
0:51:11
Stebbins: I did. Are you saying that judges are delaying? Mr. Stebbins, you've heard whatever I've said.
Judge: All right. This is not a conversation. Okay. You want to have a conversation, find a friend and go to a coffee shop. This is a legal hearing. And I have indulged as much as I can. in that process. But I'm not going to sit here and start saying, you say, I say, you said, and have to justify myself to you. All right? You got a concession out of me that things could have run faster. That's the best you're going to do. All right. This case is now concluded. We're in recess.
0:51:43
Judge: Thank you.
Clerk: Court is in recess.
Judge: Thank you.
Last edited:
