June 19, 2018 |
Opinion: Judge Otero Is Getting Sick Of This Crap, Too |
LOS ANGELES â Late last week, I wrote about Donald Trumpâs former lawyer filing an application for a restraining order against Stormy Danielsâ current attorney. Or maybe it was about the current lawyer for Trumpâs former lawyer filing for a restraining order against Stormyâs former attorney on behalf of Stormyâs current attorney. Who can tell anymore? In any event, something I would have made a bigger deal out of if I hadnât been hammered when I wrote the post last week is the application was filed on an emergency ex parte basis. You can find a dull-but-accurate definition of the term here, but basically an ex parte motion is akin to a lawyer shouting âHey Judge, drop everything youâre doing and deal with this shit now!â On top of being the sort of thing which makes judges want to choke the briefcase-carrying dickheads who file them, there are rules in place for when and how to file such requests and the standard youâre expected to meet when you do. As attorney James Moo observed on Twitter, Michael Cohenâs application regarding Stormyâs attorney, Michael Avenatti, may have come up just a little short of what the fella hearing this case, U.S. District Judge S. James Otero (not to mention California law) requires.
âI suspect Judge Otero (or his fine clerks) will notice all of this and be (unhappy face emoji),â Moo added in a subsequent tweet. âWe shall see.â Sure enough, while Judge Otero didnât outright reject Cohenâs request, he did issue a minute order in which he rejected the notion of issuing an emergency order. Instead, he set a date for a hearing on the issue â and included a nice little reminder of how little he likes ex parte requests. âEx parte applications throw the system out of whack,â Otero wrote, quoting his own standing order issued earlier in the case. âThey impose an unnecessary administrative burden on the court and an unnecessary adversarial burden on opposing counsel who are required to make a hurried response under pressure, usually for no good reason.â Otero continued to note such applications âdemand priority consideration, where such consideration is seldom deserved.â âIn effect, they put the applicant âahead of the pack,â without cause or justification,â Otero continued. âEx parte applications are not intended to save the day for parties who have failed to present requests when they should have, and should not be used as a way to âcut in lineâ ahead of those litigants awaiting determination of their properly noticed and timely filed motions.â None of this means Otero absolutely wonât issue a restraining order against Avenatti, but it does mean heâs not going to do so any time real soon. His minute order gives Avenatti until June 25 to file his opposition to the application, with Cohenâs reply due on July 2. Itâs risky enough to try to read the tea leaves in all of this if youâre a lawyer â which, thank God, Iâm not. I am pretty good at reading between the lines to tell when the person who wrote something isnât pleased with the person they wrote it to, though, a skill I honed over several decades of being a very disappointing child, student and husband. Based on that extensive experience, Iâd say weâre looking at a highly irritated judge right about now â and thatâs generally not a good thing for litigants. |