Court Calendar maybe 'overloaded' in the Boston courts
In the Boston district, the court calendars maybe somewhat overloaded. I had the miserable experience within the last 18 months or so being on the witness list for two cases in the Boston area courts, different plaintiffs, against the same defendant; and everything took forever. The cases took forever to go to trial. The defendant dragged discovery out for months in the first case, and years in the second case. In the second case the progress was so slow that for a few years I forgot about it until I remembered and asked the plaintiff 'what happened with your case', since I thought at that point (year 5 or 6) that they must have settled by then. I found out it was still going on and had not gotten to trial yet!
The first case, I was on the witness list because I did some research for the company, and wrote a letter with my results, that ended up in the files of the CPA firm for the company. The plaintiff found my letter in those files and I got put onto the witness list. I was fortunate, in that except for a two hour meeting with the lawyer for the plaintiffs, I did not have to testify because they settled before I was called to testify. That case, from start to finish was about three years.
The second case, which had its judgement entered last year, took 7 or 8 years, from the initial filing to the entry of the judgement; and that case supposed to be on the 'fast track', with a trial originally expected within two years of the filing. That case was miserable. As a witness, I had to look through hundreds of pages of documents and explain what everything was. The worst part is that I had told the defendant, a number of times, that they should pay what they owed instead of going to trial. My testimony on the stand was only about 15 minutes, but I had to go to court twice. The first day I was scheduled to testify, they did not get to me before recessing for the day, since the prior witness ran way over what was expected for time. The second day I almost left at 12:45pm, since they recess court at 1pm and I figured I was not going to get called again and have to come back for a third day. Fortunately, the judge must have wanted to move things along and they got me in that day. In total, with driving time for the two days and waiting in the courthouse, I must have spent 8 to 10 hours in total for 15 minutes of testimony. And this was supposed to be just a 'simple' contract case.
As a comparison, I can see a patent case like this, with all kinds of side issues and claims in the patents taking a lot of time.
Another indication of the overloaded calendar was that the Markman hearing had to be delayed because of the Bulger trial. That delay alone pushed things from the summer to the fall.
I forgot where, but I recently saw that the federal court system calendars are overloaded with a number of judicial appointments held up. In the future the problem is expected to get worse since in a number of circuits there are judges that were going to retire but stayed on the assist for the workload.
As a side note, even for a simple state district case, if you can ever avoid going to court, do so. In the cases I was on the witness list, it looked like the defendant thought they could drag things out forever, and instead probably ended up paying the same if not more, plus lawyer fees, plus interest. Many times the time and expense ends up being worse than the initial loss in civil cases.
Louis J. Desy Jr.
