Judge Loses Temper in LIV Golf vs. PGA Tour Hearing, Postpones Trial Date
In what turned into a heated conference Friday afternoon, the PGA Tour won one of its biggest battles: a delay in its trial against LIV Golf.
On Friday in U.S. District Court, California Northern District, Judge Beth Labson Freeman lost her cool, but more importantly vacated the Jan. 8, 2024, trial date while refusing to set a new one.
For months the PGA Tour has asked that the trial date be vacated and moved to later in 2024 or 2025 because the Private Investment Fund of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and Yasir O. Al-Rumayyan refused to provide key documentation and comply with requests for subpoenas.
When Judge Freeman was discussing moving the date for a hearing on summary judgement to Jan. 11—a hearing that could effectively eliminate a trial—the counsel for the PIF objected to a potential limit of pages that could be filed in briefing the motion.
Judge Freeman, near the end of the 1-hour-and-20-minute Zoom call finally snapped.
“All right Mr. Quinn (An attorney for LIV Golf), I hear you. I hear you, Miss Lamm (An attorney for PIF). And I’m not setting a summary judgement schedule, it’s vacated. I’m not setting a trial, it’s vacated and I will now look at my schedule when I can hear all of your motions. It may be two years from now,” Freeman said.
Freeman then indicated that she is currently setting trial dates for the middle of 2025.
When Lamm suggested that Freeman was acting punitively toward her clients, Freeman explained that this case was receiving the upmost support.
“This has been punitive to all of my other litigants that I have given this case preference and I am not doing what I do every week, which is set summary judgement on a schedule and you are now going to be treated like everyone else. And I don’t look at that as being punitive,” she said.
After Quinn did a quick mea culpa, Freeman backed off her position to some extent and kept the summary judgement date of Jan. 11, but remained unwilling to set a trial date while stating it would likely be about four months after the summary judgement hearing.
The issue of discovery has dominated most every legal filing and case management conference that has been conducted since the beginning of the year.
The Tour believes that documents necessary for its defense of the antitrust claim brought against it by LIV Golf and the prosecution of its counterclaim against LIV Golf requires access to documents of the PIF and Al-Rumayyan.
As part of the discussion about discovery, LIV Golf believes that the two cases do not have to run together, but on different tracks and that any information that PIF or Al-Rumayyan could produce would have little if any probative value to the antitrust claim and should not hold up the timing of the case or trial.
Judge Freeman, while not issuing an order on what would be essentially bifurcation of the cases agreed that it would be difficult to split the cases up.
“I do see this evidence as potentially relevant to all of the claims and defenses that the Tour is bringing,” Freeman said of fruits of discovery of PIF and Al-Rumayyan. “So, I just can’t ignore that relevance, I can’t force the defendants (PGA Tour) to go forward with one hand behind their back and it may be more serious than that.”
While the issue of bifurcation has been fully briefed, Freeman was unwilling to move on a decision, but clearly is inclined to rule in the Tour’s favor when it comes to that.
Back on Feb. 9, Magistrate Judge Susan van Keulen issued an order compelling PIF and Al-Rumayyan to participate in discovery, produce documents requested by the PGA Tour and also be deposed if required.
Both PIF and Al-Rumayyan had argued that they were immune from discovery due to the Foreign Sovereign Immunity Act, which grants immunity on foreign states in lawsuits and protects their property as well.
Judge van Keulen found the arguments by PIF and Al-Rumayyan deficient mainly because of the provision in the FSIA that states immunity does not apply due to PIF’s commercial activity in the U.S.
Judge Freeman issued a stay on March 15, mainly to address and review legitimate procedural issues that PIF and Al-Rumayyan asserted.
On April 6, Judge Freeman issued an order denying PIF and Al-Rumayyan’s motion for relief and reinstated Judge van Keulen’s order on FSIA, which forces the PIF and Al-Rumayyan to produce documents and compel them to testify in a deposition in the U.S.
That ruling by Judge Freeman against the PIF and Al-Rumayyan was appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on the same day of the ruling.