A very special donor was kind enough to provide me with some money so that I could download documents in the case without coming out of pocket like I usually do for things like this. In full disclosure, I’m not sure if I went over the quarterly charges for PACER, but if I did, just know that it was covered by a valued Stenonymous reader just like you.
Just to get this out of the way, the most recent docket report is available here.
The most recent development? Trey’s lawyer put up screenshots of court reporters calling Trey a whiner and “admitting” to blackballing him.
The screenshots were found in the exhibit attached to the document I just linked:
Document 88 was a reply to document 76:
Document 76 seemed to have pieces of document 25, or related to it, so I’m including that too. Fun fact, document 25 was filed a year ago. This should give us all an idea of how backlogged courts really are.
The Texas Court Reporters Association responded to document 88 with document 89.
In brief, the TCRA argues that Trey’s reply to the motion is not allowed under the law. It also accuses the plaintiff of cherry picking. The TCRA also says that even if the court considers what has been submitted, plaintiff still fails to state a cause of action because plaintiff fails to show that they worked together to boycott his business at the behest of the Texas Court Reporters Association rather than undertaking parallel independent action. TCRA further notes that Pam Coder and Lisa Venator Morton are not parties in the action and have not been TCRA directors or officers “at any relevant time.”
I have to say, this is all very interesting to me. I am eager to see what the court rules with regard to whether the plaintiff’s reply is proper/considered and whether that impacts the outcome of the motion.
Of course, I have to take a jab at the Speech-to-Text Institute, the organization that helped several large corporations defraud student and lawyer consumers. The organization has still not filed any reply in the lawsuit. But the damage on our industry initiated by the organization continues to this day, as I learned this morning.
I’ve always leaned in the direction of TCRA being innocent in this whole thing. But if the court rules against its motion to dismiss, seeing what comes out publicly during discovery might change my mind.
Given the number of defendants that have managed to terminate from the case as of 11/16/23, if plaintiff can’t pull through on this and it only leaves STTI, I’m curious as to whether the multimillion dollar corporations that had been involved with STTI can be roped in or if the case will cease to be viable financially. STTI, as I’ve reported in the past, appears to have no assets. As I see it, the fraud, deceit, and coordination of the larger companies was certainly anticompetitive conduct, but they’re not named, so what might that mean for this suit?
As always, open to people who have more information or more familiarity with the federal court process chiming in.
What do you think? Will the case reach discovery? Will it be dismissed after discovery? Will it reach trial?
Only time will tell.