Who would have thought we’d be talking about Trion Worlds using incorrect font sizes?
It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time for an update on the case of Van Fleet v Trion Worlds, an active lawsuit in San Mateo County Court that seeks class action status regarding two major offenses: That Trion Worlds misled customers by offering a 10% discount and then did not follow through, and the question on whether or not lockboxes in ArcheAge constitute an illegal lottery.
If you need more backstory, go here. For the rest, let’s move on.
You may recall in the last episode of In Plain English, Trion Worlds had filed a demurrer (that’s a motion to dismiss) against the claims of illegal lottery and notably not the claims of misleading advertising, with a court hearing scheduled for August 23. The notes from the hearing have just become available, so let’s go through them.
To keep the story short, both demurrers filed by Trion Worlds on the basis of standing and failing to allege facts have been overruled by the court. The real meat and potatoes of this story resides in the fact that Judge Weiner had some comments regarding improper procedure by Trion Worlds lawyers.
The judge accuses Trion’s lawyers of skirting statutory page limitations via over-use of footnotes, and that the footnotes were not in 12-point font as required by law. It may seem like a small error from the outside looking in, but the courts take these procedures seriously enough that Judge Weiner threatened to strike down future briefs that do not adhere to procedural statutory laws.
Judge Weiner went even further by striking Trion’s evidence as being improperly submitted. Trion Worlds submitted with its demurrer screenshots and information from ArcheAge, and did not formally request judicial notice. Trion’s request for judicial notice regarding its End User License Agreement was denied.
“Judicial notice is a rule in the law of evidence that allows a fact to be introduced into evidence if the truth of that fact is so notorious or well known, or so authoritatively attested, that it cannot reasonably be doubted. This is done upon the request of the party seeking to rely on the fact at issue.”
In its pleadings, Trion also attempted to convert the demurrer (motion to dismiss) into a summary adjudication, essentially asking the judge to make a ruling without going to trial. The court declined to do so.
So where do we stand now? Trion Worlds has until September 17 to file its answer to the First Amended Complaint, after which a Case Management Conference will be held on October 26 where the parties will discuss status of discovery, status of settlement or mediation, any other possible motions, as well as the date of the following CMC, plus any other matters pertinent to the case.
Parties will also discuss the status of the lawsuit class action certification, including any further research needed to support or deny such a claim.
I have uploaded a copy of the Case Management Order to the MMO Fallout Google Drive, linked below.
(Source: Docket)
