Other facts about the Vin Diesel case:
* The Declaration cited above by atty Matthew Hale was submitted to the LA County court on Thursday, June 26 in advance of a Friday hearing on the issue.
* This Vin Diesel case is scheduled for trial in August, and Vin Diesel was supposed to have the rest of his deposition taken last week by Hale; however Hale was informed that wouldn't be happening due to largely spurious objections by Vin Diesel and Diesel's last minute unavailability, even though hotel accommodations and prep had been arranged in advance. (The excuses included that Diesel has a medical condition, needs to have security with him at all times, and could not conduct his deposition on the 30th floor of an office building that he might need to leave on short notice and thus go down 30 floors to an underground parking garage.) In general, Freedman's firm wants to push the date of Vin Diesel's trial to November because Freedman is scheduled to be handling another (older) trial in July as well as a (older than this case) mediation. Freedman's firm has also filed a motion for summary judgement in the Vin Diesel trial and would like that decided on before trial starts.
* Hale's declaration, which requests $7K in fees and sanctions and fees from Freedman for his unprofessional behavior related to the deposition also notes, in a footnote, that "To the extent it solves any of Defendant's concerns [re release of information about Vin Diesel's "sexual history" etc],
it may be prudent to appoint a discovery referee at Mr. Freedman's expense to ensure (1) professional conduct at further in person depositions and meet and confers and (2) to make decisions regarding the appropriateness of the subject matter of the questions during the deposition in real time." So Hale is calling Freedman's future behavior into question here as well and raising the question of whether he can be trusted to behave professionally in the litigation setting. No idea what the judge made of this.
* Matthew Hale has been a lawyer for 10 years, graduated from U of California law school and, before that, Harvard. He won a $5M verdict against UPS 2 years ago. He's the Assistant Director of Litigation at plaintiffs' firm Greenberg Gross and charges nearly $1K/hour in fees (exact amount is in his declaration). It is clear to me from his declaration that he's a serious attorney who is not going to risk his reputation by making up ridiculous facts in a sworn statement to the court for drama or fun.
* The other lawyer from Freedman's firm, Sean Hardy, also filed a declaration on June 26 to support their motion to delay the trial. Hardy's declaration is just a normal atty declaration about all the attachments, and provides no personal account (as Hale's does) of the altercation between Hale and Freedman. Hardy says nothing defending Freedman's behavior or discussing any of this.
* On Friday, June 27, Judge Daniel Crowley held a hearing on Defendant's motion to continue the trial until November, and Plaintiff's motion to compel the deposition. Freedman and Hardy (from Freedman's firm) and Hale attended and presented oral arguments. The court's order is terse but Crowley ruled that both of these matters were to be continued before him next week, on Tuesday, at the same time, 8:30 am. "The Court advises counsel to come with a list of things that are needed from each other. The Court further orders the parties to meet and confer in the interim."
I pulled several docs from the LA county website to gather the information noted above. They are available on the following website if you want to take a peek, these docs include:
* Judge Crowley's Friday order;
* Matthew Hale's Motion to Compel Vin Diesel's Deposition and to collect sanctions/fees from Freedman;
* Matthew Hale's Declaration in connection with same (I excerpted some of the exhibits here b/c it was too long to post);
* Sean Hardy's Motion to Continue to Trial Date and Hardy's declaration re same.
Filings available here:
https://vindieselcasefilings.tiiny.site