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For the Lawyers, It Was a Working Weekend - Updated

By Pamela Jones et al.

Today at the trial in SCO v. Novell, SCO will finish up its case with the testimony of Ryan Tibbitts. And then Novell begins its side, with its first witness, Joseph LaSala.

While you and I were goofing off over the weekend, the lawyers were very busy. Lots of filings, with SCO now objecting to Novell's proposed witnesses or to some of the testimony. It doesn't want Michael DeFazio's deposition to be played in full, for example, especially the part where he says he thinks Novell retained the UNIX and UnixWare copyrights. SCO says he shouldn't be allowed to opine based only on his reading of the APA. Novell for its side says he was the lead negotiator of the APA for Novell, so he's obviously qualified, particularly as to intent. That's SCO's favorite topic with its witnesses, after all, and all of their witnesses testified as to their understanding of the APA, so fair's fair.

SCO has filed a long document trying to limit what the many lawyers Novell intends to call -- Joseph LaSala, David Bradford, Gregory Jones, Allison Amadia, Tor Braham, and Aaron Alter -- can talk about in front of the jury. That's quite a list, when you consider that SCO presented none. There is no one to rebut their testimony at all.

Novell also has a motion that SCO should not be allowed to present its surprise witness, Troy Keller, since there was no opportunity to do discovery, and it's too late to do it now mid-trial, making the prejudice to Novell too great.

And Novell has filed a Motion for Leave to Examine Other Witnesses on Prior Rulings. Judge Ted Stewart allowed Novell to examine SCO's expert Christine Botosan about them, but he said not to mention the rulings to any other witnesses without leave, so Novell is asking for leave, particularly with respect to LaSala and Tibbitts, not for hearsay purposes, like to establish the truth of a matter. No, but they want to introduce it to challenge SCO's damages theory.

Full post as published by Groklaw on March 22, 2010 (boomark / email).