Last week, in First Quality Tissue, LLC v. Irving Consumer Products Limited, C.A. No. 19-428-RGA (D. Del.), Judge Andrews issued the following order, apparently sua sponte:
ORAL ORDER: In connection with the argument currently scheduled for January 19, 2022 [regarding pending Daubert and summary judgment motions], the parties shall submit non-argumentative letters by January 4, 2022, specifying, in order of importance to the party, the issues they want to argue, with citations to where the relevant briefing can be found. The parties should not specify more than three issues each. At the argument, the total page limit for each sides entire slide deck is thirty pages.
Thirty slides is not a lot for a combined SJ/Daubert hearing. The Court did not set a time limit for the hearing. But it is an SJ/Daubert hearing in a patent case and it is set for 9:00am. It sounds like it may run 3 hours, with about 90 minutes per side, although that is not a sure thing.
It's interesting that the Court seems to have done this sua sponte, at least based on the docket. I can't recall any other instance of any D. Del. judge limiting the number of slides that a party can use; more often, the advice on similar matters has been something along the lines of "use your time how you wish, but less is more." This may be a first.
I'm wondering if this was prompted by something in the case (I don't see anything obvious), or if it is going to be a case management technique that Judge Andrews uses going forward.
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