Big day today on the podcasts. Earlier this morning on the “Daily Roundup” I posted a 60 minute conversation with Rachel Juarez in regards to the appellate brief David Gingras filed last week in the Clayton Echard/Laura Owens case. Rachel breaks it down like only she can: the good and bad of it, why she thinks there are good arguments that he makes, what she ultimately thinks will happen, where does it go from here, etc. Then in the weekly podcast, we are joined by first time guest Rikkii Wise, who you probably have seen pop up all over your TikTok recently if you watched “Love is Blind” this season, as she and Reality Ashley have been covering the Tyler/Ashley drama better than anyone online. They’ve spoken to Tyler’s baby mama Bri, posted interviews with her, spoken to people that know both parties, and Rikkii has gotten under the skin so much of Ashley and Tyler they’ve already deemed her the “fake TikTok journalist,” even though all she’s doing is reporting facts she’s gotten straight from the other parties. A very interesting chat with Rikki today that I know you’ll enjoy.
This podcast is also up on my YouTube channel now. Go watch and subscribe here:
You can listen to today’s podcast on a number of platforms, but you can also tune in by clicking the player below:
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(SPOILERS) I begin by going over what was on the Daily Roundup today in the interview with Rachel Juarez. Then Rikki joins me (7:08) to talk about all the “Love is Blind” drama post-show between Ashley & Tyler, Tyler’s first podcast appearance post-reunion yesterday, the questions we both have, what Tyler is missing, Ashley’s stance on everything, and much, much more.
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(SPOILER) Your Daily Roundup is an extensive 60 minute conversation with “Hot Bench” judge Rachel Juarez breaking down the appellate court brief filed by Laura Owens lawyer last week, the ramifications, the consequences, the good and bad of it, and where she sees the case heading.
You can listen to that podcast on a number of platforms, but you can also tune in here:
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts,RSS, Stitcher, Spotify
Music written by Jimmer Podrasky
(B’Jingo Songs/Machia Music/Bug Music BMI)
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DAILY ROUNDUP 11/21 INTERVIEW WITH RACHEL JUAREZ TRANSCRIPT
You are listening to the Daily Roundup here as part of the Reality Steve podcast. I am your host, Reality Steve. Thank you all for tuning in. Today we are breaking from protocol, what we normally do on this podcast. And we are going to talk to Rachel Juarez yet again. And it’s because she has great information in regards to the David Gingras podcast.
Appellate brief that he filed with the courts and it’s 75 pages long. She read it. She’s also gotten herself very immersed in this particular case. When we first started off with Rachel talking to her about a month ago, the only thing I had sent her was. Here’s the two hour trial. Here’s Judge Mata’s decision.
Here’s David Gingras first blog post once he realized he lost the case. Ever since then, she has basically got caught up on all the briefings. And she is, for sure, very much into this case now. So it’s not just an outsider looking in. She’s read a lot of the stuff. She understands it obviously a lot better than the lay person does.
So, we spend an hour today talking about Gingras’s appellate brief. And you’ll be surprised. It’s not all her coming down on him and saying, This is awful. There’s no way he’s gonna win. She’ll never say either way. He’s 100 percent going to lose 100 percent he’s going to win because she just doesn’t say that.
She says no lawyer should say that. You heard that the last time she was on. But she does say that there are some things in this appellate brief which makes sense to her from a legal perspective. And then she gives her overall thoughts on everything. We go over some of the things in the case. We talk about Laura.
We talk about Laura’s podcast. A lot of stuff is covered. This is an hour, a little over an hour conversation. So, we are just gonna jump right into this thing. So, here we go with today’s Daily Roundup with Rachel Juarez. Alright, let’s bring her in. You know her as one of the three judges on the syndicated court show, Hot Bench.
You can see her. Every day at some point during the day on one of your channels it is on all the time And she is now a multi time guest she is immersed in the Clayton Eckerd Laura Owens case it is Rachel Juarez Rachel Thanks for coming on again. Yeah immersed is right Steve Well, I like the fact that you know when you first came on it was about the Devon stuff And then at the end of that Devon podcast we briefly discussed the Clayton case and like I said at the time you didn’t even know a trial had taken place and You I caught you up to date on hate, watch the two hour trial.
Here’s Jinger’s blog afterwards. And here’s some other things to look at, but ever since, and then we did a podcast after that to give me more of your complete thoughts on everything. But ever since then, you have basically caught yourself up on all the motions. Like, you know, this case. Obviously, you haven’t been covering it for 15 months, but you have read all the motions and you’re very well aware of other things that have happened in this case now, right?
Right. So over the last week or so, it seems like I kind of jumped in at the right time when things seem to be going on. I’ve been able to go back because of how extensively this has been covered and pull not all certainly, but a lot of the briefing in the case. And in particular, when I was able to get the appellate brief yesterday from you, I I was able to go back and look at the briefing that took place on these same issues.
Before the trial court, because as I think I may have explained last time, as Gingras has gone over, you can’t raise issues on appeal that haven’t already been raised in the lower court. So kind of by definition, nearly all issues that are argued on appeal, Have already been argued on both sides in the trial court.
So before coming on and kind of weighing in on the arguments that Laura and Gingras are making on appeal, I wanted to be able to kind of see for myself what Clayton’s attorneys were likely to argue in response because I am not independently, you know, knowledgeable about Arizona law outside of kind of reading these cases and reading the briefs in this case.
Gotcha. So. You read the brief and before we get into the details of it, he did do a video, a 45 minute video where he read the first 15 pages. And I know you had thoughts on that and now you have read the the full 75 page brief. Before we get into details of it, what was your overall take on his first 15 pages?
And then, like I said, overall of the whole brief, Kind of your thoughts and his, I don’t know, strategy about it, the way he’s presented things both on his YouTube channel and in writing. What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I will tell you, I, I was a little surprised frankly with the quality. It was better than I thought it would be in terms of the legal arguments.
When I kind of see his YouTube videos, I, it makes me kind of question his judgment a little bit. I thought the brief was better than I expected on the legal arguments. It was certainly kind of spicier than most appellate briefs are which are usually dry. And I think that’s consistent with his personality, a little maybe over the top at points.
But I, I thought that for the most part, the argument was measured and fairly respectable. Which contrasted from some of the stuff I read before the trial court. So I kind of expected it to be another diatribe and it wasn’t, it was more measured and more reasonable than I expected.
Okay. So I guess it looks like there are two major things.
As someone who doesn’t know law at all, but has read enough of these briefings and just kind of gotten tired head reading them is one of the biggest things that he’s focusing on in this appeal is rule 26. And to someone like me, I don’t really understand it. I Googled rule 26. And as I told you last night, it was like, Reading Chinese.
I have no idea what it’s talking about. I don’t understand it. So I guess the best way is to just let you have the floor and explain what rule 26 is and why Gingras is hung up on it and seemingly making his whole argument in the appeal about. Rule 26 being I guess violated here,
right? Okay. So rule 26 in Arizona is a family law offshoot of a federal rule of civil procedure, which also exists in Arizona civil law, which is federal rule of civil procedure 11.
And basically what it does among, you know, many other things, but relevant to this case is it gives A party, an opportunity to challenge pleadings that are filed without any basis for the filing. Alright, all the standards for what violates Rule 11 are a little different between the rules, but basically a frivolous filing.
So if you file a case frivolously, without any potential merit, that’s a violation of Rule 11. It’s a violation of the obligation that you have a good faith belief that everything you’re putting in pleadings, which includes a complaint, is true. So as part of that rule, and this is the same for rule 26 and family law in Arizona, if you believe that a party has not complied with rule 11 or rule 26 and filed a pleading or a complaint without any good faith basis, then you For doing so, you can basically follow the following procedure.
You can send them a formal written notice saying, I believe you have violated rule 11 by filing your complaint. And I intend To file a motion for sanctions against you. And every different rule has different specific requirements for what that written notice has to say. Sometimes you actually have to give them a copy of the motion you intend to file.
Sometimes you have to serve something on them, which is the notice. Sometimes you just have to tell them in writing informally, but one way or another, you have to tell the other party. I intend to seek these sanctions against me. And then there is what’s called a safe harbor period where the other party is supposed to have a certain number of time for rule 26.
I believe it’s 10 days to say, oops. You got me. I will withdraw the offending pleading. So in this case, it would be I will withdraw the complaint and the request for relief that I’ve made. And if they do that within the 10 day period, they are supposed to be free from your threatened Rule 11 sanctions motion.
Or rule 26 in this case. So the theory is, you’re kind of giving them a warning and a chance to correct their behavior. And the reasoning underlying that, the reason there’s a safe harbor period, is basically to eliminate the disincentive for a party who does think, you know what, I blew it, to just double down and fight, right, and cause a bunch of litigation over just whether the pleading was frivolous.
So, it gives them an opportunity to say, okay, I’m withdrawing it. And so, what happened in this case was Clayton did file a Rule 26 motion for sanctions, saying that the complaint in this case was filed without a good faith basis and that Laura did not have a good faith basis to believe the things she alleged in the complaint.
And
ultimately, that motion was withdrawn. So what, basically what Gingras is arguing is that if, and the if is really important here, sanctions were only awarded under Rule 26. That was improper. So if this 150, 000 in sanctions was a Rule 26 sanction, it should not have been made because the safe harbor aspect of Rule 26 was not followed because he claims that Laura was not given formal notice and given an opportunity to withdraw her pleading.
So his argument is that Any sanctions under Rule 26 would be in violation of Rule 26 and therefore, as a matter of law, they must be overturned. So that’s the kind of Rule 26 argument. But then the next step is that he also makes the argument that any other sanctions that might have been awarded for any other reason, would Also can’t be awarded because of the Rule 26 Safe Harbor Provision.
In other words, if If you decide to withdraw your pleading, which Laura tried to do, during that safe harbor period, you can’t be sanctioned for any reason, discovery violations unreasonably increasing the cost of litigation, any other reason, because Rule 26 has a safe harbor provision. I know it gets a little complicated, but that’s basically it.
The issue here, and when I read the brief, I think the arguments he makes about rule 26 and whether appropriate notice was provided, whether Laura tried to cure the violation. May have been maybe right. I think I’ll just leave it at that. There they could be right. There are some very nuanced aspects of the nature of the notice that needs to be provided that very You know, from state to state and which are really highly dependent on expertise in that jurisdiction, but being generous to him, I would say he may be right.
The problem for him is that. Judge Mata had several bases. For awarding sanctions, and I don’t see a problem with any 1 of the other bases. So, you know, she said basically that Laura had engaged in a host of sanctionable conduct under many different theories and statutes, one of which was Rule 26. So even being generous to Gingras and saying he’s right about Rule 26, which I’m not convinced he is.
But even giving him the benefit of the doubt, there are several other statutory bases for sanctions here. Most specifically, the one that says that attorney’s fees may be awarded for unreasonable litigation conduct. And I don’t see any good argument in his brief. There is a argument. I don’t think it’s a good one that Those other sanctions couldn’t be awarded just because there might have been a problem with rule 26 sanctions
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See Mint Mobile for details. Okay, when you talked about earlier, Laura dismissing. And I think you and I spoke about this over text when she found out. So the pretrial hearing, the one that ended up on zoom, where we saw her with a baby bump was end of October of last year. And then there was a trial hearing the next week, which we did not get on video.
I think, but it wasn’t until I think mid November where she was quote unquote told that she no longer had the children. And we don’t even know when that happened. Yeah, you know, that could be debate could go on for days, but right, she was told mid November. Oh, by the way, you’re no longer pregnant. And then at that point, she basically said, well, there’s nothing to debate here anymore.
There’s no case. I’m, you know, I want out. Why don’t we just drop this thing? And Gingras his argument has been like, Hey, we wanted to get out of this thing. There was no babies anymore. So why are we even dealing with a paternity suit? There’s no babies. We want it out. Clayton was the one that kept continuing this.
That’s why there was so many dollars that were racked up in legal fees because he was the one that wanted to continue it. We didn’t. And I said, well, look, of course he did because she had slandered him for six months. And then all of a sudden wants out because she lost the babies. Something that we knew was going to be the end result of this.
We all knew that she was never going to deliver two babies, nine months after May 20th, but it was just a matter of when that was going to happen and how she was going to describe it regardless. So she moves to dismiss this whole thing mid November after she finds out she’s not pregnant. And that’s essentially, I mean, Gingras wasn’t even on the case at this point.
He didn’t take over until February or March. So when Woodnick responds and says, no, we’re not dropping this, is this the point of contention here where Gingras said, Hey, after November 15th, nothing should have happened with this case. We all should have gone home.
So it, it is a point of contention in Gingras makes it one legally.
It is not because that’s not how it works. And it’s not because, you know, it’s so offensive that she’s defamed him. It’s because he had filed. a response to her complaint, where he asked, he being Clayton, for affirmative relief. So if you, you know, kind of take this outside of the family law context, if I sue you, Steve, for breach of contract, and you respond, well, I didn’t breach the contract, actually, Rachel, You breached the contract and now I’m suing you also.
And you know, you see these on court shows, including hot bench all the time. It’s a counterclaim. That counterclaim is now like its own case. And. After I have responded to your complaint or after Clayton had responded to Laura’s complaint, if the person responding files a counterclaim or asks for affirmative relief as Clayton did, it makes sense and it is the case that the plaintiff can no longer say, oops, I want this all to be over.
Now it’s all over because now the other person has a case against you and you can’t make that go away. By just calling uncle, right? You can’t just say, Oh God, I got caught. Okay. Now everything gets to go away. And I went back and pulled Clayton’s original response and I got to give the guy credit. I was super impressed, you know, cause it’s a four and you fill out for the court.
He, at the very end, Checked a little box saying, I want other relief, including sanctions and now Clayton has an affirmative claim for relief. So at that point, which was months before Laura sought dismissal, she now cannot just dismiss the whole case. and make it all go away. She can still say, I don’t want my own release that I asked for, but she no longer has any absolute right to just make this case go away for obvious reasons.
Because then people who sued others and then had a counter claim filed against them could basically just make the counter claim go away by just saying, okay, I want it all to be done. So that is just wrong as a matter of law.
Yeah. Okay.
The other important thing to note is, you know, Gingras has said many times, and we’ve seen a lot of sort of insistence, that Laura, as soon as she knew she wasn’t pregnant, she didn’t want to do anything else anymore.
Yeah.
But that’s not really how this happened. She didn’t immediately go to the court and say, Please dismiss my case.
We’re talking about November when she found out, technically, Correct. That no one was pregnant.
Okay. Correct. Correct. She asked. For mediation. After she should have known. That she was not pregnant because of the HCG test that she, by the way, altered, but different story, right?
She asked for mediation and this was the second or third filing in this case That was really very unreasonable and improper Where she was basically begging the court to make Clayton talk to her, right? She filed a motion for communication You know, prior to that, which when I first heard that, I thought maybe that’s a procedural thing in Arizona that I’ve just never heard of.
It’s not. It’s, it’s just ridiculous. You know, she basically filed a motion begging Clayton to meet with her and she now says, oh, well, that was going to be my way to tell him I’m not pregnant anymore. But you don’t get to do that. You don’t get to use the court resources for that purpose. And then, when Clayton didn’t agree to mediation or, you know, things just kind of kept going, she didn’t immediately file for dismissal either.
She waited over a month. And it wasn’t until she saw, oh, Clayton isn’t going to just go away now that the gig is up, that she suddenly decided, ooh, okay, maybe, maybe I picked the wrong person this time.
Okay, here’s my question about this motion for communication now. Basically begging him to talk to her, but he’s a guy that she had an order of protection against.
So which is it? Do you want him to never come in contact with you? This is a woman who claims she was fearing for her life because Greg Gillespie and Mike Maracini were sitting in at the trial with security guards there. And yet she’s claiming I’m fearing for my life. Now she has an order of protection against Clayton.
And yet she’s saying, Hey, we need to meet. I want to talk to you. Like, this doesn’t make any sense to me.
Of course it doesn’t. Now, I don’t know, I can’t remember which one came first. I am pretty sure that when she filed the motion to communication, the motion for communication, whatever, there wasn’t any order of protection in place that would have prevented that.
But, but regardless, these were all happening around the same time.
Yeah.
