PPJ Healthcare Enterprises Inc (PPJE)

[Ed the Trader]

TRIAL and TRAIL FACTS

1) The trial did officially start as scheduled on Monday morning, July 7th. If this was not true, the entry for the trial on the court's website would have been deleted, not moved to the "Proceedings Held" section of the website:

07/07/2014 at 09:30 am in Department 48, Elizabeth Allen White, Presiding
Jury Trial - Trial Trailed

2) The current delay is NOTHING like the previous delays. The previous delays were continuances, and were measured in weeks or months. The current delay will take days, and no more.

3) The reason for the delay is not known for sure, but the most likely reason is the Michael Hemming, PPJ's attorney, was scheduled to be in the middle of another trial in another court. This was documented by Hemming in his request for a continuance, filed on June 25th:

...I am scheduled to be in trial starting June 30th, 2014 in Dept 71 of the LA Superior Court with Judge Bruguera and anticipate that the trial will not finish until July 10th, 2014.

(Reference: http://www.scribd.com/doc/232137159/2014-06-25-PPJ-Ex-Parte-Application-to-Continue-July-7-Trial-Date)

So, the fact that PPJ v. Grewal trial is temporarily on-hold is of no surprise to those of us who actually read the court documents.

Hemming's request for a continuance, which attempted to move the start of the trial from July 7th to mid-August or mid-October, was denied by Judge White. Although the request for the continuance was denied by Judge White, that rejection does not negate Hemming's obligation to complete the trial already in progress.

As Hemming indicated, it is anticipated that the other trial will conclude on Thursday which would provide the possibility for the PPJ v. Grewal trial to resume on Friday. Of course, there is also the possibility that the other trial could run long, or that Judge White opts not to resume until the following Monday.

In any event, this trial will be back under way in just a few more days.

4) The trial is scheduled to last for 15 court days. Assuming that the trial resumes next Monday, that would have the the trial concluding on August 1st. Judge White has already indicated that she has no intention of allowing this trial to consume 15 days of her valuable calendar, so you can expect her to move the trial faster whenever possible.

5) There is another settlement conference scheduled for this afternoon, and it should already be in progress at this point:

07/08/2014 at 01:30 pm in department 23 at 111 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA 90012
Mandatory Settlement Conference(2nd session)

6) Today's settlement conference is the second mandatory conference. Previous to the first MANDATORY settlement conference, there had been another settlement conference scheduled, However, Grewal's attorney had a family emergency which took him out of town, so PPJ's attorney filed for a trial continuance, and the attorneys blew off the settlement conference.

The problem there is that Judge White was on vacation at the time, and she had expected the settlement conference to be held while she was on vacation. She must not have been very pleased to learn that her order for a settlement conference had been ignored because she then ordered a MANDATORY Settlement Conference. That one did take place. Today's is the second such conference. We should not be surprised if, in an effort to end this trial as soon as possible, Judge White schedules additional settlement conferences. This is especially true if there seems to be too much of a stalemate during the trial proceedings.

7) Obviously, with or without a settlement conference, a settlement agreement can occur at any time, which would end the trial. If either side views their position in the trial as becoming weak, the probability of a settlement increases drastically.