A while ago I reported on a motion filed in an Arkansas case seeking a continuance on the ground that trial was set during deer season and so most of the jury pool would be out in the wilderness. In the interest of keeping you up-to-date on other possible grounds for continuance, and of assisting other Saints fans in the legal community, here's a motion for you.
Defendants in Danos v. Avondale Industries, which is pending in Orleans Parish, Louisiana, moved yesterday to continue trial from its current starting date of Monday, January 22, 2007, to Wednesday, January 24, on grounds of exigent football-related circumstances:
As this Court knows, it was determined just last weekend that the New Orleans Saints will play in the National Football Conference Championship game -- the first such game [as the court very likely also knows] in the franchise's forty-year history -- against the Chicago Bears in Chicago, Illinois on January 21, 2007 at 2:30 p.m. In order to accommodate all fans, including the great majority of the jury pool, the parties involved in this case, and [last but not least] the counsel involved in this case, and in order to ensure that a full jury pool appears on the first day of trial, Defendants request that the beginning of trial be pushed back two days to January 24, 2007.
Plaintiffs' counsel (also a Louisiana firm) apparently had not responded to multiple attempts to secure agreement to the continuance as of yesterday.
The motion does slightly downplay the fact that the game is on Sunday and trial is set to begin on Monday, it being unnecessary to make the point that nobody in Louisiana, let alone the jury pool in Orleans Parish, is likely to show up bright and early Monday morning to start a jury trial on the day after the Saints play for the right to go to the Super Bowl, win or lose. Also downplayed was the fact that one of the defense firms is based in New York and the other in Florida, but of course that doesn't mean they aren't Saints fans, because aren't we all Saints fans to some extent as a result of this miracle season that means so much to a hurricane-ravaged community struggling to find some bright spark of hope to help light its way to recovery? (Guys, feel free to use that if you need to.) Yes, we are, as long as we don't live in Chicago.
But whether you are pulling for the Saints to win or not, personally I think we should all pull for this motion to be granted, and hopefully without opposition, if you're reading this, Roussel & Roussel firm of LaPlace, Louisiana, plaintiffs' attorney of record. Jury trials happen all the time, but (so far) the conjunction of Saints and playoffs only happens once every forty years.
Link: Motion to Continue
