The City of San Jose and the A’s received another legal setback this week, as their Motion to Disqualify Counsel, namely Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, was denied by Judge Joseph Huber.
I’m out of town right now, so I don’t have the ability to view the judge’s order. When I get back I’ll take a look at it, but honestly, it was easy to read the way the judge was leaning with this ruling and the one from September. Now the City/A’s and Stand for San Jose can move forward with the trial. Lawyers for both sides are in the process of preparing briefs. We’ll be following this one closely. I expect that MLB will too.
newballpark.org 
But the premise of the trial, that San Jose did a lousy job on its EIR, is a sham, anyway.
Disqualification would’ve been extremely disruptive, so the ruling was inevitable given the apparently minor value of the privileged documents in dispute. But the motion itself, even denied, did its job. Pillsbury had to beg for mercy AND they dropped their attempt to add the privileged documents to the administrative record. Overall, not a good pre-trial skirmish for the once-haughty firm. I’ll be interested to see the judge’s order.
Santa Clara County Superior Court, btw, is way behind other courts in the state. Generally, you can download every document filed in a standard civil case from the websites of other courts.
sorry. should’ve said generally in BIG CITY courts you can . . . . Oddly San Mateo County’s not really on line either.
Agree with pjk,
Challenge to EIR is frivolous at best and a complete reach. To review: ballpark EIR certified for both a 45k seat and 36K seat stadium. Not much of a setback IMHO.
The court really should smack down the Giants for clogging up valuable court time with greed-driven litigation.
CEQA writs, especially on routine projects, place less burden on the court than a misdemeanor criminal trial. No jury, no trial really–just a hearing on the briefs, evidence pretty much limited to the admin. record. Delay in getting a project going is usually a more expensive problem. Of course, here there’s no real hurry, is there?
By contrast, Liccardo’s fantasy lawsuit vs. mlb — now THAT would be an extravaganza.
How succesful are these type of lawsuits at derailing stadium projects? I present to you the Niners SC Stadium and the Earthquakes SSS…
(worst case scenario, a delay, but we have until 2018 anyway..)
OT: 95.7 is the new Raiders flagship station. What happens to the A’s on those Sundays?
Mike-
According to the Raiders statement about it, in the event of a conflict, the Raiders games will be on KFOX.
Answer to my question:
In the event of a programming conflict with A’s baseball, Oakland Raiders football will be heard on sister station KFOX 102.1/98.5. KFOX is the Bay Area’s first full-metro mainstream Classic Rock station, and the strongest FM radio signal in the nine-county Bay Area.
Good for 95.7 and The Silver and Black!
Gi-ants are bigger and more powerful than anything small town SJ or the cheap A’z can try.
@pjw,
A little English comprehension and knowledge of spelling would go a long way here when posting. BTW, a warm hearted welcome to you and your nonsense..