Tuesday
Apr092013
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Mann libel case postponed
Apr 9, 2013 Climate: Mann I just saw this on twitter:
Oral argument in Michael Mann's libel case against Nat'l Review, Mark Steyn, and CEI, Rand Simberg postponed until June.
Reader Comments (31)
A subsequent tweet adds
(Popcorn supplies running low?)
The order states that the Court "may not be in a position to waste time on the hearing."
There - I fixed it.
Is this a precursor to it just fading away....?
My guess is the team is waiting for the end of hockey season, as sticks are in short supply right now.
Mr Mann needs to make sure the Marcott paper is at its strongest for him to use as Exhibit A.
Oh! Why am I not surprised? Even after fixing the Judge, one of Mann's tactics must be to delay the hearing as much as possible to force the defence to run out of money - he's got little else going for him. Put a little by in your sporrans folks ready to fling funds, Steyn et al are fighting our fight.
Please explain the 'defence running out of money' theory. If Mann delays and delays, then he never gets the 'satisfaction' of hearing his case tried, and I don't quite see how the defence is spending money if it never comes to court........
Mann just risks being seen as even more of a paper tiger than he is already. Surely even he isn't that dumb?
But then again...... :-)
Apr 9, 2013 at 7:33 PM | Latimer Alder
Don't expensive trial attorneys have to be paid retainers while awaiting the trial in the US ?
With respect, I can see you are new to this legal stuff. If something is delayed then your legal staff has to talk to theirs. Then they have to think what to do. Then they send you a letter and process your reply. That is a few hundred pounds gone. If you reply with a question then the till rings again.
This is a who blinks first game.
I predict Mann will fold.
Oh, wot a surprise.
This dilly-dallying should be illegal - Mann has a tendency to drag his feet. If he is messing the court around, that should be contempt. He's done this too often.
Anyone not knowing that a delay leads to Lawyers making more money either doesn't have one or IS one.
Yep, delays have a number of consequences. One, as has been pointed out, is to increase everybody's legal costs. Mann has access to the fund set up for Defenders of the Faith - his opponents' pockets are probably not as deep.
Another, which varies by jurisdiction, is to inhibit discussion of the subject being litigated. If a defamation case is on foot, most publishers are wary (and need to seek legal advice - see above) about publishing anything further related to the alleged defamatory material. A lot of these actions are never substantively litigated, the primary aim being to shut down the discussion until the caravans have moved on.
It is also a tactic to generate anxiety and stress for the party being sued - although I wish Mann good luck in making that work on Mark Steyn :)
Dr Tim Ball kicked this climate clown's polished ass ... so will Steyn, et al.
Streetcred the Ball case is still ongoing.
The court record shows the following:
"Result: Motions Hearing Vacated by Chambers per Sua Sponte Order of the Court dated April 9, 2012. Motions Hearing rescheduled to June 19, 2013 at 9:45a.m. in Courtroom #317./p.a"
This means the judge rescheduled the hearing for her own reasons. She issued the order two days prior to the hearing. Could be she is ill or doing something else that day. This does not look to me as if Mann instigated this.
Actually, I've changed my mind. Reading through the court record, I come away with the impression that the judge thinks this case is frivolous and has a busy docket of more important cases. This thing could go on forever.
Apr 10, 2013 at 1:54 AM | redc
My bad ... thought I'd read somewhere that Mann had lost an important aspect of his case, virtually handing a result to Ball. Musta bin dreamin' :)
Streetcred, everyone makes makes mistakes.
Owning up to them is much rarer, especially in areas related to 'climate science'.
Your future posts (if any) have just risen a notch in my estimation.
The Jerry Sandusky of climate change will drop the charges in that he realizes that if he takes the stand he will be cross examined and the whole global warming industrial complex will lose big.
I saw references to that as well not long ago, but was unable to find a source for them.
Gore effect on the court? Perhaps the (global warming caused?!?) Spring major blizzard barreling east over the US is the culprit in the delay.
Streetcred, NW, I think Mann had admitted that he was a public figure....
How can the defence possibly run out of money with all that 'Big Oil' funding they get? :-)
The defence won't run out of money. Mark Steyn is fighting for a lot of Cdn's Right to Free Speech.
I'm following this and talking it up with people I know. You do the same! We will win and the Nazi's
will lose.
He is probably waiting until this elongated winter is over. It seems silly defending how drastic our global warming has become when you show up to court in a pea coat in the middle of May.
streetcred:
Mann's suit against Tim Ball was completely separate from this, and in a Canadian court, not a US court. I had read some indirect reports that the suit against Ball was dismissed, possibly because Mann would not turn over materials requested in discovery. Can anyone confirm this?
I don't believe that Canada has the same "public figure" distinction in libel cases that the US has.
No, there was some wishful thinking out there but it didn't happen.
If Professor Mann's oral arguments are postponed until June, can he still continue to make anal arguments?
It'll never go to court. Mann will wait as long as he can to let it fade away as old non-news.
He and mostly his shysters know they've no case.
mr
Mann lost his hockey stick and all of his facts and his Nobel Prize for that matter.What's a narcissist professor to do?