After lawyers exceed status-letter limit by ‘whopping’ 70 pages, judge sees echoes of fictional Jarndyce case

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After attorneys exceed status-letter restrict by ‘whopping’ 70 pages, choose sees echoes of fictional Jarndyce case

By Debra Cassens Weiss

July 11, 2024, 10:36 am CDT

The handiwork of attorneys who crafted a joint 73-page month-to-month standing letter received’t seem on the federal docket after a Justice of the Peace choose famous final week that it was a “whopping” 70 pages over the restrict.

U.S. Justice of the Peace Choose Ona T. Wang of the Southern District of New York ordered the letter to be faraway from the docket, together with a submitting that adopted, Law360 experiences.

The prolonged letter was filed amid discovery disputes in a lawsuit alleging {that a} Pakistani financial institution funded terrorism in Afghanistan.

The legislation companies representing the plaintiffs are Sparacino and Susman Godfrey, in accordance with Law360. The agency representing the defendant Habib Financial institution is White & Case.

Wang informed the events on the final standing convention “to not have the protracted letter-writing campaigns the place you commute arguing with one another,” she stated in her July 1 order.

The warning was not heeded.

“It has turn into obvious that no quantity of nudging or admonishing from the bench will curb these ‘letter-writing campaigns,’” Wang wrote within the order.

Wang stated the events should meet and confer in good religion to resolve their discovery disputes. If the events nonetheless can’t attain settlement on their “myriad points,” they have to file a joint standing letter restricted to 5, single-spaced pages. That web page restrict applies to future standing letters, as properly.

Wang additionally stated she is going to “very possible” apportion or grant prices in rulings on future motions to compel discovery or to grant protecting orders. She pointed to a civil procedural rule authorizing imposition of legal professional charges when motions will not be made in good religion or when objections will not be considerably justified.

Wang noticed parallels to the long-running contested-will case within the 1852 novel Bleak Home by Charles Dickens.

“Discovery on this litigation is susceptible to devolving right into a modern-day Jarndyce v. Jarndyce, because it has ‘turn into so sophisticated, that no man alive is aware of what it means.’ and ‘no two … attorneys can speak about it for 5 minutes with out coming to a complete disagreement as to all of the premises,’” Wang wrote.

The case is King v. Habib Financial institution Restricted.