SCO’s case against Novell for slander of title is going to trial on March 8.
That means a Utah jury will decide who the heck owns Unix.
Novell tried like the dickens but failed to get the date pushed back to next summer during a scheduling hearing Tuesday with Judge Ted Stewart, who’ll be presiding.
If Judge Stewart didn’t already know how jury-shy Novell is, he does now.
Novell’s outside counsel Michael Jacobs first tried pleading that the trial would take three weeks not two as SCO maintained. The first open date for a two-week trial was March 8. The first open date accommodating a three-week trial was in June and Jacobs was reportedly all over that idea like, well, a June bug on a ripe fig.
When that didn’t work he tried pleading that there was an awful of work to be done and briefs to be filed beforehand and he needed time. Judge Stewart reportedly asked him what briefs he had in mind exactly since the case was fully briefed and on the brink of going to trial in August of 2007.
That was right before Judge Stewart’s predecessor Judge Dale Kimball took the decision away from a jury with his now famous summary judgment that Novell owns Unix, the decision that the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned sending the case back to Utah to be heard.
Perhaps Judge Stewart was sending Jacobs a coded message not to bother filing any motions to stay. According to Groklaw, Jacobs means to reprise Novell’s bid for no special damages, i.e., no malice intended when it claimed to still own the Unix IP. He also means to take another run at the Supreme Court to see if he can get the appeals court’s decision overturned. It’s a real long shot.
Jacobs’ motion to get SCO’s case against Novell combined with SCO’s case against IBM – a thought that used to appall Novell – also looks pretty futile. Ditto his attempt to get the two cases assigned to one judge – preferably Judge Tena Campbell, who’s already drawn the IBM case.
Read between the lines here. Judge Campbell is getting close to senior status when district court judges can unload half their cases and go part-time. Judge Stewart has a reputation for getting things done, especially old cases with tortuous histories, as he’s quoted as saying about SCO.
In its attempt to get to trial ASAP cash-strapped SCO and its Chapter 11 trustee pushed back against Novell’s stay-out-of-court-as-long-as-we-can consolidation motion.
Observers are crediting SCO’s trustee Ed Cahn, himself a retired district court judge and a relatively neutral party, with helping get the court off the dime. He filed a declaration with Judge Stewart saying the case has merit and should be expedited. Joining it to the complexities of the IBM case would only confuse people, he said.
As it turns out, according to Groklaw, after some squeezing and shoving by the clerk of the court Novell got its three-week trial anyway. Now it remains to be seen whether anybody actually uses this carved-out period of time or whether we’ll see a settlement on the courthouse steps. Novell’s sudden, inexplicable desire to consolidate its case with the IBM case raises suspicions about either case ever going to a jury.
For its part Groklaw figures the date will be reset due to Novell’s motions. It’s also characterizing Judge Stewart as partial to SCO.