SCO seeks to proceed on one of its $1G claims against IBM: conf. Wed.
Al Petrofsky
Wednesday, August 11, 2010, at 14:00 -0600, in SCO Group, Inc. (f/k/a
Caldera International, Inc.) v. Intl. Bus. Mach. Corp.,
No. 2:03-cv-294, D. Utah.
This was in response to the motion SCO filed a week ago (which seems
to have somehow so far escaped the notice of the vaunted "many
eyeballs" at Groklaw, InvestorVillage, Yahoo, etc.). See the "Motion
for a Status Conference", July 30, 2010, dkt #1039, which has been
available for the last week from
<http://scofacts.org/nefomatic-test-IBM.html> and
<http://ecf.utd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/iqquerymenu.pl?17917>.
SCO wants the case to move forward on the claims that it believes are
neither stayed by the bankruptcy nor tentatively mooted by the Novell
judgment. Namely, that means "SCO's claims for Unfair Competition and
Tortious Interference (the Sixth, Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Causes of
Action in SCO's Second Amended Complaint)" (Motion at 4).
That sixth cause of action, for Unfair Competition, seeks "damages in
an amount not less than $1 billion" (dkt #108 at 63), and it is the
original billion-dollar claim in SCO's long history of seeking (but
never obtaining) "BILLIONS of dollars"
(<http://scofacts.org/billions.wav>; recording of SCO attorney Arthur
Spector at hearing on March 30, 2009, at 2:19:30 p.m., in In re: SCO
Group, Inc., et al., No. 07-bk-11337, Bankr. D. Del.). (This claim
was the second claim in SCO's original complaint on March 6, 2003.
The other four billion-dollar claims were either not added until later
amendments, or did not include the billion-dollar specification until
the amendments.)
If Judge Campbell were to decide to move the case forward on those
claims, the next steps would be for her to decide IBM's long-ago
briefed-and-argued motions for summary judgment on the claims
(possibly after requesting supplemental briefing and/or argument), and
then to schedule any surviving claims for trial.
SCO concluded its motion for a status conference with this:
Given the likely dispute over the effect of the Novell Litigation,
the complexity of the claims and pending motions in this action,
and the possible dispute over the scope of the bankruptcy stay, SCO
respectfully submits that the Court and the parties will be best
served by holding a status conference for the Court to consider a
schedule for hearings on motions and for a trial in this matter.
At the status conference on Wednesday, I don't expect Judge Campbell
will get so far ahead of things as to set a potential trial date, but
I imagine she may set briefing dates and possibly a hearing date to
decide the preliminary question of the whether the case should proceed
at all, and if so, on which claims.
Another question, which SCO did not address but I imagine IBM might,
is whether judicial economy calls for the case to be reassigned from
Judge Campbell (who has not yet done anything in this case) to Judge
Ted Stewart, who is already familiar with all the many issues in the
case that overlap with SCO Group, Inc. v. Novell, Inc.,
No. 2:04-cv-139, D. Utah.
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Here's the NEF for the hearing notice, Dkt #1090 (which is a PDF-less
text-only entry):
Notice of Electronic Filing
The following transaction was entered on 8/5/2010 10:29 AM MDT and
filed on 8/5/2010
Case Name: SCO Grp, et al v. Intl Bus Mach Inc
Case Number: 2:03-cv-00294-TC
https://ecf.utd.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/DktRpt.pl?17917
Filer:
WARNING: CASE CLOSED on 09/20/2007
Document Number: 1090
(No document attached)
Docket Text:
NOTICE OF HEARING: (Notice generated by Mary Jane McNamee)
Status Conference set for 8/11/2010 at 3:00 PM in Room 230 before
Judge Tena Campbell. (mjm)