All Star Line Up at Pending McCourt Divorce Trial.
Frank McCourt (not to be confused with the author of Angela’s Ashes) has added renowned Houston-based trial attorney Stephen Susman to his “line up” (sorry, bad pun but fun) in the pending August 30, 2010 Los Angeles County Superior Court divorce trial against ex Jamie McCourt, who has her own “All Star line up” (ouch, again) in the form of renowned attorney David Boies.
Left: Girl’s baseball, 1918-1922. Library of Congress.
The trial mainly focuses on the validity of an agreement that specifies that Mr. McCourt is the sole owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
As reported earlier in March of this year, the McCourts had spent an estimated $19 million in this divorce proceeding, if it can be classified as a routine dissolution battle (naught!).
Messrs. Susman and Boies charged $1,100 per hour, with both being ranked among America’s premiere trial attorneys.
This one should be interesting because both attorneys are 1-1 against each other. Mr. Susman cogently observes, “This is the tiebreaker.”
For more on this story, see Bill Shaikin’s June 26, 2010 article in The Los Angeles Times, appropriately titled “Frank McCourt adds to his team—of lawyers.” (We are not the only ones who have a disposition to using puns, apparently.)
Orly Taitz Loses Another “Birther” Challenge, This Time in D.C. District Court.
Well, Orange County resident Orly Taitz, an attorney, real estate broker and dentist, has lost another “birther” lawsuit in the D.C. federal district court. Earlier this year (in April), U.S. District Judge Royce Lambeth dismissed her challenge after using some very colorful, literary-driven language in doing so.
He dismissed her “quixotic attempt”
at proving that President Obama is not a natural born citizen, Judge Lambeth indicated he was “not willing to go tilting at windmills with her.” (Don Quixote would be proud, as Cervantes would likely attest to.) Then, in a footnote rejecting her request for a writ of quo warranto, Judge Lambeth penned: “Ironically enough, Ms. Taitz could never establish an injury [required for quo warranto standing] because—as far as the court is aware—she was not elected president, nor could she be as she is not a natural born citizen herself.” Touche, because Ms. Taitz was born in Moldova, a former Soviet Union republic near Romania.
However, Ms. Taitz was not sanctioned in this one …. although you can access our prior posts of October 19, 2009 and March 19, 2010 to see a sanctions that was earlier imposed against Ms. Taitz by a federal district court judge and later affirmed by a circuit court of appeals. See more on this one in Fank Zotter, Jr.’s post on June 15, 2010, available for reading at the Internet version of The Ukiah Daily Journal.