Chief Judge Stark today denied an emergency request by defendants to delay a remote bench trial scheduled to start next week.
The Court had previously solicited the parties' preferences on how to handle trial and, before the pretrial conference, ordered that the trial would be fully remote. At the pretrial conference, neither party objected to that ruling.
Last week, however, Defendants sought emergency relief to delay the trial in order to convert it to a "partially remote" trial, submitting a declaration from their client that they had not authorized their now-former in-house counsel to agree to a fully virtual trial.
They cited due process rights and the importance of in-person testimony to assess credibility in a "bet the company"—their words—litigation.
On Friday, Chief Judge Stark denied the relief but invited a renewed request with detailed proposals for how a partially-remote trial could work.
Defendants responded with a short letter now saying that a partially remote trial was "impossible," and requesting a live trial at some point in the future.
Chief Judge Stark denied the request in a lengthy order today, noting that the defendants had failed to propose procedures for how to safely conduct such a trial, had failed to address the Court's concerns, had cited no precedent, and that the trial has been delayed twice before due to other health issues related to defendants' counsel.
The Court also noted that it it is confident that the parties will receive a fair trial with remote witnesses, and that the videoconferencing technology it has been using (and is currently using for another bench trial) "is working fine."
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