- Quickdraw McLaw
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This afternoon the Supreme Court of Nevada will hear oral argument regarding two different aspects of the MGM CityCenter case. You can read the court summaries of the two arguments here or watch the live stream starting at 2:30 p.m. The first argument will be about whether the work-product privilege applies to documents held by a public relations firm hired by MGM to help manage publicity around the unmitigated PR disaster that is the Harmon hotel. Specifically, MGM is seeking to keep the PR firm’s work product privilege despite the fact that they were hired by MGM and not by MGM’s attorneys.
The second argument, and perhaps the more interesting of the two, is MGM’s challenge of a decision last July by Judge Gonzalez that permitted MGM to demolish the Harmon, but excluded expert extrapolation evidence. The issues, as framed by the clerk who wrote the summary on the Supreme Court website are:
(1) Did the district court overstep its gatekeeping authority in excluding the extrapolation evidence?
(2) Did the district court adopt a bright-line rule for the admissibility of extrapolation evidence, requiring that it be based on results from randomly selected testing locations?
(3) Did the district court unlawfully sanction petitioners for failing to randomly choose the testing sites by placing conditions on the additional destructive testing?
This case is getting national news coverage and will be another opportunity for the Supreme Court to overturn Judge Gonzalez. It is also an opportunity for the struggling MGM to try and turn the tide in its favor (since Judge Gonzalez’s ruling last July, MGM has changed counsel several times, hiring multiple firms, and currently has completely different counsel than it did then–see this recent post mentioning Morris Law Group and Kemp Jones & Coulthard withdrawing as counsel). The arguments will be heard by the en banc Supreme Court less Justices Pickering and Paraguirre who, ironically, had to recuse themselves because of their connection to the two firms that just withdrew as counsel for MGM.
Any predictions on how this turns out? Will one of Nevada’s largest employers sway the Court once again? Will any of Nevada’s Legal Elite be arguing? Will anyone care? Tune in this afternoon to find out!
Cherry doesn't even want to hear the first one.
It sounded like the court is going to avoid any substantive decision and let MGM raise the issues again on appeal after trial.
I was onsite when they found the damage to the Harmon Tower. Perini is responsible. They hired morons.