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Act 71: Summary Judgment Motions

My strictly non-lawyer's understanding of "summary judgment" motions is that they are requests for the judge to decide the case in favor of the party submitting the motion without letting it proceed to trial – because, it is maintained, no material facts are in dispute, only matters of law. The theory is that if facts were in dispute, the truth would have to be determined via a trial – but if only the law is at issue, there's no need for a trial, the judge can make a "summary" (in the sense of "done without delay") decision based on the law.

From what I understand, motions for summary judgment are routinely submitted by both sides in civil cases – and sure enough, both sides have submitted summary judgment motions in this case. In fact, according to the docket:

Taubman filed a summary judgment motion on March 15, 2002. (Beware the Ides of March!)

We filed a summary judgment motion on March 18, 2002.

Taubman filed a brief in opposition to our motion for summary judgment on April 5, 2002.

We filed a brief in opposition to Taubman's motion for summary judgment on April 10, 2002.

We filed a reply to Taubman's brief in opposition to our motion for summary judgment on April 16, 2002.

Taubman filed a reply to our brief in opposition to their motion for summary judgment on April 18, 2002.

Makes your head spin, doesn't it?

But even when my head stopped spinning, I realized that this flurry of motions, counter-motions, and counter-counter-motions had led to me fall so far behind on maintaining this website that I was never going to be able to catch up. And so, reluctantly, I've decided to drastically curtail my activities here, in the hope that cutting back on the ambitious scope of this site might at least allow me to remain somewhat current on recounting the events in the case.

What that means is that I'm no longer going to try to post every motion that is submitted. Until now, I've posted every motion, either as part of the text of a web page or as a graphic (or, most often, both). But although I may post an occasional motion and/or ruling in the future (especially if it's short!), I'm not going to make any effort to post everything that transpires in the case. I'd very much like to, believe me – but I'm afraid that I simply don't have enough time to keep up with it.

This looks like a great time for me to implement my new policy – and so I'm not going to post any of the motions I referred to in the bulleted list, above. However, when Judge Zatkoff finds the time to wade through the incredible volume of summary judgment paperwork that we've submitted to him, I will do my best to post the text of his decision,