So we go on. So now, so the rest of the brief, I mean, I, you know, I think it’s a well done brief, but I, to me, there’s not, I don’t believe that, I don’t think that Gingras even made a really compelling case, even in his opening brief, that the sanctions were not appropriate under these other statutes.
And, you know, they kind of, when it kind of goes through and explains, you know, why the sanctions were awarded, why the conduct falls within the ambit of these statutes. But the one thing I did want to look at just very quickly is on page 50. Because, you know, as we saw in, in Gingras’s issues, right, one of the separate issues he called out was there was no motion for sanctions filed.
And so how can you award sanctions under these statutes? When there was no motion and wouldn’t it takes that head on and basically says that that’s not that’s a motion isn’t required. It just isn’t. So, you know, they and that is true. This is another place where family law comes in. Everybody in family law knows.
You don’t even need a formal request to ask for fees. It’s one of the things in family law where you can stand up at a hearing and say, your honor, we’re going to have a, like, we’re, I know we’re here talking about custody today, but my client needs a hundred thousand dollars for fees for this proceeding.
And he’s litigating her into the ground. And I need you to look at the most recent financials and give me some fees. That’s enough notice. As long as the court has the information. You can make an oral request. Now whether or not the court has the correct information before it and things like that is different.
It is, everybody knows, fee requests in family law, and it apparently is the same in Arizona, can be very informal because requiring too much formality for those. Would make it difficult for someone who needs fees to even get them. Because how are they going to get a lawyer to make the formal fee request?
So anyway so Then we just get into you know, and the reason to the the rest of the brief is basically the trial court was not wrong in finding that Laura engaged in litigation misconduct and that her positions taken were unreasonable And I kind of think we’ve been through that so many times. Yeah, I don’t think we can
get out of the
Yeah, no, no, no, I don’t think we do I don’t think Gingras meaningfully takes that on nor should he, because there really is just, I mean, to, to suggest that, that this decision was just wrong under an abuse of discretion standard, right, is basically saying that Judge Mata’s conclusion that she, that she engaged in litigation misconduct.
When we know she fabricated evidence, altered documents, that the finding that she engaged in litigation misconduct was so bad that it abused her discretion as a judge. Come on, you know? Not only is it right, and it’s been admitted, but, I mean, it It’s not an abuse of discretion, not even close.
So there are, there are some other things that obviously, since Gingras has taken to YouTube and become a content creator now, he seems to really have issues with certain things that he has brought up.
And I wanted to go over them with you and I’ve talked about them privately, but I want other people to hear this. A couple of things that he’s brought up and a couple of things that. Are questionable to me. Number one, he is hell bent on getting judge Mata removed from being a judge in the state of Arizona.
Like he thinks she’s the worst judge ever. She’s inexperienced. She’s only been on the bench for two years. Boy, she made some mistakes. I’m just trying to get her to respond to me. Remember that whole thing where he’s like, why doesn’t she just respond to me? And that was outrageous. Please inform everybody why Judge Mata doesn’t have to respond to him, and she’s not doing anything wrong, and it doesn’t make her a bad judge because she’s not responding to him.
Yeah, because could you imagine if there was a requirement, this is where we kind of get into, let’s take his argument and see where it would take us, you know, and see if that makes sense. Can you imagine if parties could just say to a judge, I think you’ve been sleeping with my brother. Respond to me. And a judge had to sit down and go through and deny each of those allegations?
It would, it would, that’s all judges would do, right? You know, judge, explain why you ruled on this objection and it seemed wrong, because I think you were sipping your water and not listening at the time. And if a judge had an obligation to go through and respond to these email inquiries, no matter what, I It would, it would, it would just cause absolute chaos.
You know, there’s a right to file a motion to disqualify. And you know, I, it also should be said that I don’t believe he even gave her the amount of time he said he would to respond before he took other action. But that’s really neither here nor there. You have the right to file a motion and a judge has the right to respond.
To suggest that she has done something wrong, she could have responded to his email if she wanted to, but to suggest that she’s done something wrong is outrageous. Because it would just open the floodgates, you know, of ex party communications with judges and couldn’t be more wrong.
One of the other things that he’s addressed quite a few times, and I don’t, and I haven’t heard anybody online talk about this again.
It’s something that you have brought up to me is he loves going to the robing room, which is like a message board for judges. Yeah. Or as you called it, Yelp for judges. It is. And he talks about the fact that look at what somebody wrote. Somebody gave Judge Mata two stars in the robing room and talked about how she did something wrong in this particular case.
And he took a screenshot of the case. He put it on his Twitter account. Can you explain to people what the robing room is and kind of how relevant it is?
Yeah. So the robing room is like, it’s kind of like rate my teacher. Right? It is, it is, it covers all jurisdictions, all judges in all courthouses everywhere.
And it just kind of puts them on a list. It doesn’t even catch all of them because it’s not a formal site of any. And you have the opportunity to rate a judge between, I think, zero and 10 or one in 10, and then write something about them. And I don’t think there are any judges that have a positive rating on Voting.
And you can imagine why. It’s the nature of the internet. Right? People do not go on the internet to write lovely, glowing reviews of things. They write, they go on the internet to bash people and things and that the roving room is no different. So, you know, and it builds on itself, right? There’s never a lot of reviews.
So there may be 11 for a particular judge. A judge hears 11 cases a day, right? I mean, so you’re taking such a tiny sample and the majority of things I see on the roving room when I end up there somehow is that people will say, this judge hates mothers because she didn’t give me custody of my children.
So they make these broad sweeping statements about a judge’s bias or a judge’s, which are, which are just completely ridiculous. And they are based on the outcome of one case and one disgruntled litigant. So I would just, I would encourage anybody who thinks the roving room is a good or who has doubts and not that there is anyone just, just go on and read them.
I mean, there is a public website. And I think you’ll find that it’s, you know, it’s
and he’s using that as his argument. That’s what’s so weird. It’s like, I do not know because somebody and like you said, the person who wrote that has ginger is gone in and studied that case. Does he know exactly that?
Absolutely. Mata made the wrong decision. In that case, it looks like he just screenshot a negative review of Mata and said, look, see, she is a bad judge because this guy gave her two stars. It’s like, First off, how do you even know if what that guy wrote is true? Like he was didn’t understand.
I could go online today and write, I just had a case in front of judge Mata and she took my kids away from me because she liked the shirt.
My husband was wearing and she told me she didn’t care about me. I could I could go there’s no verification process.
Yeah, there’s no vetting
right now. Yeah it is yelp. It’s yelp for judges except worse than yelp Yeah,
One of the other things that he brings up a lot And by the way, if you have a question for rachel put it in the comment section and I’ll bring it up or I’ll star it or whatever.
One of his big arguments right now, or seemingly on his videos is we kind of brought it up earlier, which was Laura had the ability, Laura said, Clayton’s the one that continued this case.
Right.
Laura said, I want it out. This didn’t even need to continue, but Clayton is the one that my client just wanted to get rid of this whole thing.
And she filed a motion. Did she file a motion to dismiss in December of 2023? Yeah. So explain again why Clayton isn’t in the wrong for continuing the case like Gingras a seemingly assumes that he is.
Right. So that obviously, I mean, I just want to say, I just want to put it out there. Right. Right. It obviously, there would have been nothing wrong with Clayton saying, I’m happy to cut and run right now.
I’m happy for this to be done. I’m happy to leave. I’m happy to get out of here. And I’m happy to have this be over. If he had made that decision, that would not have been a bad or wrong decision. It might’ve even been the better decision for his mental health, right? There’s also nothing wrong with wanting to see this case to the end, right?
What he was put through, right? He was, these are public proceedings, right? He’s a public figure. He was dragged through the mud, right? He had lots of allegations made both publicly and privately against him and both in the court and out of the court against him. And in his responsive papers. You know, Laura filed her petition in his response of papers.
He said, I don’t, I already think I’m going to need attorney’s fees. I already think there’s no good faith basis for this petition. And to suggest that she can kind of allow him to litigate for six or seven months and then say, okay, the gig is up, but now it just has to be over because I choose for it to be over.
I mean, it’s wrong. You know, in a lot of cases, The the the person who is sued brings a counterclaim they sue back and can you imagine if you know if I sued you For breach of contract and then you sued me back and I realized I was going to lose I’m, not allowed to just say okay. We shall go away and now your case goes away, too No, that’s not how it works so
And I think I think where gingers is getting lost in this and this comes up to Something i’ve talked about on my podcast this week is that gingerous, you know readily admits You The JFC knows way more about this case from September of 2023 until he took over in March of 2024.
Yet he still just goes off everything Laura tells him. And he just assumes that it’s true because Laura told him it’s true. He has no reason to doubt it. And then he says, why didn’t Clayton just let this go? Laura wanted it to go. She was no longer pregnant. It’s like, that’s fine. That’s what, you know, we don’t believe that that was the case, but he, because he wasn’t there from September to December.
He doesn’t seem to understand what Laura put Clayton through. So of course, when she says in December, and this is something that Dave, Neil, and I hinted at, we didn’t want to say it out loud, but we hinted at it every time. It’s like, Hey, if you say you’re pregnant, there’s literally two outcomes here.
Either in nine months, you’re delivering something out of your body
or two,
or you’re not so David. I knew that there was never going to be a baby that was coming out on February 14th. It’s something we talked about numerous times. It’s like. Does she not know what the end result is here? It’s not like she’s saying she’s claiming he hit her because then it’s like a, he said, she said, she’s saying he impregnated me and I’m due.
She even gave us a due date, February 14th, 2024. We all knew that she was never going to deliver on February 14th. So when she says in December of 2023, by the way, I’ve lost the babies or I am no longer pregnant. We still, I think to this day, have no idea. What she claims she’s changed her story so many times.
I don’t even know if jingris can say this is when she lost but
If I was able to ask jingris one question, that would be the one I would ask Explain to me the timeline of her pregnancy.
Yeah, I think that’s what we all want and he will never do it
Yeah, medically, you know, if you have a, if she were to have a very early miscarriage that could go unnoticed or it could be a non serious medical event, you know, it’s a serious emotional event and a serious personal event, but a, but not a significant medical event in the sense that, you know, she might not need a hospitalization or doctors care.
If she had lost twins at the time that she said she lost them next in October,
that is
not something where like they’re just gone. I mean, that’s a, that’s, that’s, I mean, that’s a, that’s an advanced stage of pregnancy. That’s a very late loss for a miscarriage.
You need, you need a doctor to remove them.
They aren’t falling out in the toilet, right?
I wouldn’t say that. I don’t know. I’m not a medical professional, but yes. Right? Like, you know, this is not like a, Oh, I’m not really sure if something happened last night because I was bleeding a little bit and I’m not, I’m just not sure if that was a thing or not.
No. And so it just, that would be the question I would ask him. Tell me the timeline of her pregnancy.
And it’s funny because when I was talking to Gingras back in December, he had told me, I’m going to do a video on why I believe Laura was pregnant. And then of course he never got around to it and said, you know what?
It’s pointless. Yes. You know, and it’s just like, actually it’s not pointless because this is the whole argument from us on this side, from myself, from Dave from everybody, Megan Fox, the JFC crew, this is what we want to know. What is your timeline of Laura’s pregnancy? Because we don’t know you’ve never.
Laid it out there for us. And he said he was going to, it was the reason I was going to have him on my YouTube channel to do a live like this. And yet he just said, you know what? I’m not, you know, I’m not interested. I don’t want to do it anymore because I don’t, I don’t think it’s getting anywhere and it’s just like, okay, but then you can’t sit here and say the JFC crew won’t get over the fact and wants to live in the past.
It’s like, we’re not living in the past. We just want answers to things. We’ve never gotten answers to.
Yeah, I don’t, I mean, I think. You know, I think Gingras really is one of these personalities that enjoys representing the bad guy. You know, I mean, and sort of enjoys taking the counter position and playing devil’s advocate and, you know, likes kind of standing up and saying, you all misunderstand it and I’m going to change minds.
And I kind of thought, I kind of think he might have thought he was going to change minds at first and he just had no idea what he was getting himself into. And I think there’s been a little bit of change in his, in the, in the tenor of what he’s been posting and such things like that. I mean, he’s. You know, he’s now saying like if I even have a law license and I think he’s saying that tongue in cheek, but also not tongue in cheek.
Right. I mean, I think he realizes this is, this is a little bit bad, you know? I mean, he’s done some stuff that really I think would, I don’t think he’s going to get disbarred because I think that the threshold for disbarment when you’re not a previously disciplined lawyer is very high. A lot of the things he’s, he’s done would absolutely get him a, some type of a reprimand in California.
What was interesting is When he had Laura on his YouTube channel on Saturday, the justice for Clayton Twitter account took some clips from it, broke some of the things down, which showed the inconsistencies. And it also showed that, wow, Jinkers really is unaware of some of the things that Laura said. And that big one was on October 16th of 2023.
She had filed a motion to talk. What’s it called? She wanted to talk.
It’s like
she requested mediation. It was filed on October 18th of 2023. And during that mediation, he says it in the video, Laura wanted to tell Clayton, the pregnancy was no longer right. Two weeks later on the pretrial hearing, she shows up with a giant baby bump and wanted the judge to see, she asked the judge, can I stand up to show Clayton that I’m pregnant?
Right. And, and in her motion for mediation, or her, you know, whatever request for mediation, she said he won’t even acknowledge that these twins are real. It wasn’t like I need to speak to him about the important things going on in this case. He’s challenging, like, what, what a horrible human, you know, and this goes back to why Clayton wanted to pursue the case.
His reputation, it was at stake and he wanted to be vindicated, you know, and you see this a lot in civil cases. You know, I know we’re going to talk about like Lylee and Justin Valdoni another day, you know, at some point it is perfectly appropriate for a litigant to say, you know what, I need an answer. I need an answer at the end of the day vindicating me, right?
Now, we encourage people in a lot of circumstances not to do that, right, to just kind of move on, but there’s nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing wrong with saying, you know what, we’ve gotten so far, this has so damaged my reputation. I need an answer. The vindication of seeing this through, and in this case, it really was important because I think if the, if the case had just kind of whittled away in December, we, this would be a very different situation for him than it is going through that whole trial, the public seeing Maude’s ruling, and I mean, the, you know, the, the sort of ethos on this case publicly, everybody’s on his side, everybody, and I’m not so sure, I wasn’t around back then, but I’m not so sure that was the case in like September, Yeah, I can imagine some people really believed him.
But some people were also probably sympathetic to her. And if this had just kind of disappeared in December, this would have, this would have just died down. And I’m not sure Clayton would ever have really vindicated himself the way that he has now, because I don’t know anybody who really doesn’t believe that he was the victim of a huge change.
Well,
I also think that there is something that at some point during that time, it was November, December, where he has said, filed something of like, Hey, I will end this thing, but I watch, I want you to admit, put it in writing. I was never pregnant. Right. She wasn’t willing to do that. So that’s why he continued.
So for ginger is to say, Clayton could have ended this. She tells them there’s no babies. It’s like, yeah, ginger is, she said, there’s no babies in December of 2023, which shows a belly in November. Clayton’s just wants to know. Okay, well, then what happened? Where are they?
Absolutely. And that would have been another way for her to just to just walk away scot free.
But also for him, it would have been another way for him to get it. Some type of vindication. Frankly, I don’t even think that would have been as good as the vindication he now has. But that would have been a way to at least somewhat clear his name as opposed to just, you know, entering into a confidential settlement where nobody’s allowed to talk about it.
We don’t say what happened. And, you know, everybody just walks their way. And, you know, it also, I think once everything started to come out of the woodwork about, you know, all these other people. I think there may have been an, an element of Clayton that wanted to kind of, you know, move forward so that this doesn’t happen again.
You know, and if it kind of lost steam in December, you know, who knows? We, we might have, you know, the, her fourth or fifth case going on now. Yeah. And, you know, by making it, I, I would love to say she’s not gonna do this again, but who knows? , right? Yeah.
I, I, I, I can’t I don’t know. I, I, I don’t, I can’t put anything past her.
I just, I have no idea. But the fact that he has a judgment in his favor, I think, obviously. Is huge. What about something about this case being published? Gingras thinks that this case should be he thinks it should set a precedent. It will be published Do you see it going that route anything in this case being published?
I don’t I don’t think it’s a significant. I mean gingers in his own mind is very significant, but legally speaking This is not a particularly significant case You know jurisprudentially as opposed to like in the public it is possible. It could get published You if the court ends up engaging in a lengthy discussion of some of these issues, like, of course you can, you know, of course you can sanction someone under Rule 26 after they’ve filed a motion to dismiss, because apparently there’s no published decisions on that.
And so that would be a really nice kind of hole in the law. where the appellate court could theoretically take the opportunity to say, you know, we just want to make this clear because apparently no published case has ever made it that, you know, of course you can still get sanctions after such and such.
But other than that, no, I would expect, I would expect frankly for this just to be a, the court did not air. The court did not air. We uphold the trial court’s decision.
Now, what is your overall impression of The fact that over the last three months, David Gingras has just decided to start up a YouTube channel and what he is saying on there, bringing Laura on sometimes Laura possibly starting a podcast, we’ve gotten a three and a half minute teaser of a podcast that hasn’t released an episode yet.
I don’t know if someone got to her and said, maybe you should rethink this because you’re in a criminal investigation by the state prosecutors of Arizona. But again, Gingras’s videos, Laura doing a podcast. What do you think?
No, I mean, I’m surprised it’s taken him this long. to do this. I mean, this, this guy wants to be a star.
There’s no doubt this guy wants to be a star. And I think he chose the wrong. I think he chose the wrong method. I think he chose the wrong case to kind of like set his ship sailing. Because there’s so many people out there who, as a matter of principle, are gonna try to make sure he is never a star, right?
It’s not just like he’s not picking up a big following, but he has a whole universe of people who are so horrified that, you know, about what he did. And about what Laura did and his backing, Laura, you know, that they’re not going to, you know, people are going to be all over him. And they say, you know, no, you know, any press is good press, but I don’t know.
I think this is, this is, he wants to be famous. I think, I know that’s kind of silly, but
let me bring this question up. Gingras did have his license suspended?
Oh, did he? Yeah. Oh, yes, it does. Absolutely. In terms of the likelihood of disbarment, I still think probably he would not be disbarred in California, that the really the disbarable offenses are really stealing money from clients and really prejudicing clients like by disappearing for three or four months.
As opposed to things like publishing something that’s not nice online. So, but any lawyer that’s had discipline before, it’s going to make them take it more seriously. I just still don’t think that, I still don’t think this is the type of stuff that would get him disbarred. I think this is the type of stuff that would get him a reprimand.
One of the other questions, oh, this was somebody brought up. I guess this is about Mada 5. reviews. She’s one of the highest rated on the site.
That would, that would make her one of the highest rated judges unless they’re
talking about you. Maybe someone looked up you. I don’t know if they’re talking.
Cause I’m not, I’m not a sitting judge in a superior
court, right?
I mean, I don’t think they have hot benches. One of the jurisdictions on there, but 5. 9 is like one of the highest rated judges and I’m going to guess. that the part of the reason that a new judge has 28 reviews and a 5. 9 rating is that jfc people have gone on and given her positive ratings.
I really do.
Which I’m not saying they shouldn’t, you know, I mean, it’s just it shows you what the robing room is. I, I absolutely believe that there are people who are following this who are saying, I love Judge Mata because she’s doing the right thing, you know, in this case. And you’re allowed to do that.
There’s no, There’s no filter. So that would be my guess. Although now I’m actually a little curious.
Yeah. Go on, go on.
I’m going to look because I don’t think,
I
don’t think I’ve seen a judge with 20, a new judge with 29 reviews ever.
I’m guessing. Yeah. I bet, I bet it’s after it’s probably all happened. A lot of them probably came after Gingras took that screenshot of the guy who gave Mata a two and said that about the case.
And then fans of Mata who watched the trial. Either online or there probably went in and said she did a great job on this case
And by the way, this is the robing room. This is the yelp, right? I mean you there’s nothing wrong as long as you don’t misrepresent your relationship with her. There’s nothing wrong with saying you know, I watched her preside over a trial and I thought she was very fair and even handed That that that that has as much entitlement as long as you’re honest that you were not a participant in the trial There’s no reason that it’s not appropriate to post that just like all these other people are posting things And I can already see a couple that are, they’re obviously people that are following this case
because they
talk about David Gingras and Laura in the
here’s a question.
Is it considered stealing from clients to encourage further litigation that isn’t winnable?
No, it’s not considered stealing. It, if you are, if your advice is so bad that it falls below the standard of care for a lawyer to encourage a client to pursue a case. Then it could be malpractice. So then it can be, you know, something that the client could recover, could sue you for, recover fees for, or if you sued them because they didn’t pay you you know, you could recover your fees for.
No, it’s, it’s a matter of whether or not it is, your advice was so bad that it rises to the level of malpractice, which is basically two things. It’s that the lawyer is so bad that they fell below the basic standard of care for a lawyer and that you were damaged in some way. So probably in that scenario, you would be damaged because if they’re, if they’re pushing you to go forward with the case, you’re, you’re incurring attorney’s fees when you have no chance of winning.
But it’s kind of a hard call because whether or not to pursue litigation, whether or not litigation is winnable. is somewhat subjective.
Next one. Do you think the county attorney is waiting to bring charges until the appeal is settled?
It could be. It could be. I don’t have a ton of confidence. I know that there are other people that have that have surmised that perhaps, you know, she really is going to pursue this and she’s just waiting for the appeal to be settled.
She’s just waiting for maybe the case to get settled, even if it doesn’t go all the way through appeal. You’re
talking about Rachel. You’re talking about Rachel Mitchell, right?
Yeah. Rachel Mitchell. Right.
Yeah.
I, I don’t know that she will prosecute. I think she should, but what I have seen from her, I just really wasn’t encouraged the last time she went public.
And I know there are people who say that they’ve talked to people and. in her. I certainly don’t have any inside information at all. I don’t know anybody in that jurisdiction. I don’t know anybody in her office. But it just really rubbed me the wrong way that the last time she made a public statement about this was five days before an election, and the statement was very noncommittal.
It was like we’ll be making a charging decision soon, and that means a decision whether or not to charge. I mean, it can be what to charge her with, but it also means whether or not to charge. So I would hope and that would probably be given how much time has passed. One of the two reasons that, that nothing’s happened yet, either they’re waiting for the appeal to finish, or this really does go a lot broader than, like they really are putting together an enormous case.
And that takes a lot of time to investigate and track down, but I don’t know. We’ll see.
What are the ethical considerations of a lawyer tweeting, vlogging about his own current case?
There’s a lot of them, right? So, you know, and, and Jingra said at one point, you know, well, I’m not her criminal lawyer, so I’m not gonna, you know, I don’t have to worry about that stuff.
Like, no, I mean, there’s a lot of ethical considerations. The first one, which I think is the most important. and is satisfied in this case. Is it, does the client know you’re doing it and is it okay with them? Right? Because that’s, I mean, that’s the biggest threshold and that one is satisfied here. If the client knows you’re doing it and is okay with it and approves what you’re posting, then the ethical considerations basically become not doing something to prejudice your client’s case.
But whether or not blogging publicly about a case is going to prejudice you in an appeal, that’s a decision that I feel like is kind of a decision made jointly between a lawyer and a client. There’s no definitive legal answer or superior legal knowledge that a lawyer has about that. So I would have a hard time seeing him get in any trouble for publicly tweeting, doing vlogs or anything about his case.
I think he could get in a lot of trouble. If it ends up that Laura was not approving all of his videos, approving everything that he put up. But my guess is she probably is. And then every time he talks about another case, I also kind of wonder. You know, I, I think on at least one occasion he said I have the client’s permission to discuss this.
So you take him at his word, but I think if he’s discussing cases that, where he doesn’t have the client’s permission, then you get into all sorts of issues with, are you disclosing privileged information? Are you prejudicing your clients in any way? You know, it, it becomes kind of a morass. Usually we don’t like to do that.
We just don’t like, and you’ve noticed Woodnick has not gone public in any way. And my guess. No. And my guess is, I don’t know, but my guess is that that’s a deliberate choice. It’s the same choice I would make. You know that not there’s nothing to be gained by going toe to toe in the media with Gingras or trying to respond to his, you know attacks on woodman.
It’s just not what it’s just not really what we do
If clayton loses appeal can laura have exposure to a malpro or abusive process action?
That’s a real that’s a great question I don’t the answer is I don’t know in the state of arizona. Can she have exposure? Sure. You But in California, those, those types of cases are very hard to make out.
And I just don’t know what the, I don’t know what the standard is in Arizona. So I, I don’t know if it would be a good case or not. Could she have exposure if he, well, okay, hold on. That said, if he loses the appeal,
yeah, if he loses
the appeal, then no, there’s no exposure, right? Because at least for the time being, and again, it depends on how the appeal is lost, right?
Most likely, I think in this case, What would probably happen is because of the, there are a lot of technical legal issues, the court might, might just actually say, you know, rule 26 was not followed. It should have been followed. That was the basis for sanctions and it’s reversed and we don’t need to do anything else.
It’s over then. No, because you have a positive outcome. So, you know, you’re not really at any risk for that. If the case is reversed in such a way that it has to be retried, Which there aren’t a lot of bases for here, but, but there are a couple. Then it would depend on the outcome upon retrial, if that makes sense.
But once you get into winning an appeal and having it retried, you’re really kind of out of the zone of something that is so egregious that it could be the basis for a malicious prosecution suit.
Gingras says he’s working this case pro bono. Do you believe him when he says that?
Yeah, I do. I do. Because I think I think he loves He loves the attention.
I do. And I think that he’s, he’s doing the appeal pro bono. I’m not sure if he did the case pro bono, but he said he’s, he’s doing the appeal pro bono and we can tell by for sure he’s, he’s not charging her. For all the hours he spends on his own blogs and on his own videos, clearly that would not be appropriate unless she was hiring him to do that.
And I don’t think that’s what’s happening
now.
So, I believe he’s doing the appeal pro bono. I don’t think he would have done the initial case pro bono because I don’t think he could have known what he was getting into necessarily at that point. But once he saw how much attention is garnered, I do think it is very, very likely that he’s doing the appeal pro bono because he wants the attention.
This is something we brought up earlier, but I saw Gingras say Judge Monac could address his questions by having a press conference.
That’s the most, that’s the best thing I’ve heard him say yet. That’s really, no.
I remember him saying,
yeah, no, the rules, the rules for judges speaking publicly about cases are, are far more clear than attorneys know.
You do not speak publicly about your cases, especially when they’re ongoing. You know, 30 years after you retire from the bench and the case is over, there might be a little bit more leeway to say like 30 years ago, here was my experience when I was a judge, but no way a sitting judge can never comment on a case.
Somebody brought this up. Can things he has revealed after the trial date, i. e. it was in fact her sister’s sonogram and nobody confirmed, but she felt it was twins, be used against her in the case with the county attorney, Rachel Mitchell?
Absolutely, yes. They cannot, obviously, and I think this was kind of the assumption for the question, they can’t most likely be used in the appeal, right?
Because starting to introduce new facts that were not part of the record is really usually a no no on an appeal. But the county attorney, the county attorney can go and do her own investigation. And find that Laura, you know, find all sorts of stuff that, you know, she could find forensic proof that Laura manipulated these images, she could find, you know, all sorts of things that nobody has uncovered yet.
And those can all be part of the county attorney case because the county attorney’s case, presumably, I think would be for fraud. I mean, I think it would be not just perjury. I think it would be some, some type of massive fraud, you know,
I mean, as we kind of wrap this up, thanks for the questions, everybody.
I really appreciate it as we kind of wrap this up. I think it’s pretty clear where you stand and where you think this ruling is headed. What’s amazing to me is. You know, like I said, Jingers will watch this or he’ll watch parts of it or, or whatever. And I don’t think his reaction to this video is going to be, damn, she got me.
Everything she said was right. I’m going to lose. Like, obviously he’s going to retort with something probably along the line. Like, what do you think his retort to what everything that you presented today would be? She doesn’t know Arizona law. Is he going to go that route again?
Yeah, I think he, she doesn’t know Arizona law.
She didn’t read all the cases. She admitted she didn’t read every one. Dumb. No, I mean, I think he showed in his first video, he, he doesn’t want to call me an idiot, which, you know, I mean, I appreciate that, I mean, I don’t think I am, but right, but the fact that I have degrees doesn’t mean I’m, I couldn’t be an idiot, you know, but he’s, he’s already made clear he’s not going to go there and yeah, I think it’ll be, she doesn’t know Arizona law.
She doesn’t, she’s never practiced in Arizona. She doesn’t know everything about this case and
the thing is, neither does he, because he doesn’t know anything from September of 2023 to March of 2024, which is just really astonishing to me because, yeah, I mean, you know what? I heard to catch you out there, but I wanted to ask you that.
He takes over the case in March of 20 or April, beginning of April, end of March, 2024. And as we know, this started in September when she went to the sun. And obviously the things that were found out we find out about Mike Marichini, we find out about a Greg Gillespie. We find out about an HCG level that Dave uncovers a Fiverr local, all this stuff that Dave uncovered, the JFC uncovered.
And to him, He just cares about what’s happened from March on, which is like, okay, fine. But then you can’t say, you know, about what happened earlier. My question is, should he have known, should he have gone back and looked at every single thing from September to March before he took the case to have a better understanding, or is it not his job to know everything?
Because I just need to know what to do going forward.
Yeah, no, that’s a really good question. He should, I do not think. It is necessarily true that he needed to go back and research all of that in order to effectively represent her in the case. I am a little concerned about some of the things he says he doesn’t know about because they came up at the trial.
You know, certain things where he’s not really sure if she fabricated this or something that happened at this time. You know, so there may have been certain things. I just kind of can’t recall them off the top of my head where a gap in knowledge would have actually been a problem at trial. But I’m not really sure for this appeal.
It is necessary for him to be up to date on every single one of those. issues because that’s really not the basis of most of his arguments. He really has a technical, you know, procedural argument. And I, I always say technical, technical is not bad, right? Technical is, is just technical. And what I think is irresponsible is the commenting so na so negatively and attacking people publicly for calling her a liar when he, when he just doesn’t even know if she lied or not because he hasn’t even bothered to check it out.
Right. He just,
he just takes her word for it. She’s not lying. She told me she wasn’t.
Right. Exactly. And I think she’s a nice lady and I think she was probably pregnant. So I don’t, that’s what I find much more irresponsible as a lawyer and as a human, you know, to, to be, and, and not just to talk about the case publicly, cause all right, whatever, do that.
But to be, but to be attacking people in the media, you know, to be attacking JFC, to be attacking, You know, wouldn’t it to be attacking clayton and then when when it’s like dave I mean, there’s
a big but dave’s his biggest attack
Exactly. So to be attacking those people in the media and threatening lawsuits against people and then saying oh Well, I don’t really know if she lied about that thing because I just don’t really know back I don’t really know all the information from back then that’s pretty outrageous because What people what people are getting attacked for saying is that she’s a liar You And I mean, I would feel confident saying she’s a liar and not scared of defamation because we have proof that she lied
You know So you like if you were to take care of the case in march if you were generous What what would your procedure have been going forward?
Would you have wanted to get yourself well versed and everything that happened before you took over?
Of course, of course Yeah, I I don’t know how much I I would have known at the time to like go down the rabbit hole of social media And stuff on the case, but certainly I would have gone through the whole You trial record, you know, up to date because he knew that that’s what the, that’s what the sanctions trial was going to be on.
It was going to be on the litigation conduct for the entire trial. So you, to say like, Oh, well, I didn’t need to know what happened back then. No, you’re having a trial about what happened back. That’s really what this trial is about. So I, I would have I obviously I wouldn’t have taken this, but you know, there’s nothing wrong with him taking people who lie deserve representation too.
So I don’t want to bash a lawyer for taking on a client that has lied. I don’t, you can’t do that, but it’s, it’s how he’s put himself out there. That is so bad. I think.
Can the appellate court expand the sanctions or impose new ones?
So the appellate court has the ability to award fees on appeal to either party.
But the appellate court can not sort of like add new sanctions or say, I’m going to add an additional sanction for what happened at the trial court because that’s not an issue on appeal. But the appellate court does have the ability to award fees, the appellate fees, to one side or the other. And both parties addressed that very briefly in their papers.
I kind of blew by that stuff because, you know, that’s going to be a quirk of Arizona law. Like, what is the standard for fees on appeal? It’s not really all that interesting. So I guess the answer is, no, they can’t add more sanctions, but there could be more fees or what. To one side or the other.
How was rule 26 even an issue when Clayton withdrew the rule 26 motion?
I mean, that’s what, that’s what, you know, what Nick is saying. So the reason it’s an issue and that it can be an issue, even though he withdrew the motion is because a judge has the ability to what’s called sua sponte, which is like a judge on their own. Sua sponte bring a rule 26. I don’t know what the word is, right.
To, to sort of initiate rule 26 sanctions. on their own without a party ever bringing a motion asking for the sanctions. A judge can say, I think what you’re doing is so outrageous. I want you to tell me why you shouldn’t be subject to rule 26 sanctions and so that’s kind of what’s at issue here. Is I think everybody agrees that if there were rule 26 sanctions.
It would have been on Judge Mata’s sua sponte effort, not on the withdrawn motion, because that motion, you’re absolutely right, that was withdrawn, that’s done.
What are, if any, legal ramifications that can be brought on Laura for manipulating doctoring, both financial and medical documents she impersonated doctors?
And lawyers in the past.
I mean, it’s, it’s criminal. It is. So that would be
something for Rachel. That would be something if Rachel Mitchell charges her, that would be in her.
Absolutely. Yes. You know, yeah. I mean, these are, these are not, you know, these are not murder charges, but there are, those are all like high level misdemeanors, you know, doctrine financial records for presentation to a court.
You know, it’s, it’s similar to cases where people manipulate their financial records to get a loan from a bank. Like we saw and stuff like that, you know, It’s, it, that’s a crime. It’s fraud. There are, but there are also the legal ramifications from that happening in this case because manipulating, manipulating and doctoring those documents to the extent they were court exhibits and to the extent that they are sort of relevant to the litigation conduct.
That’s one of the bases for sanctions here. That’s one of the unreasonable things done, you know, that kind of pile up in terms of sanctionable conduct.
I think early on you might have said this in regards to whether or not charges would be brought up. You said, look, if she is charged by Rachel Mitchell, it’s not going to be because she lied on her oath.
It’s because That happens plenty of time in family court. Like people lie all the time. You don’t get charged by the county attorney for lying. She, I believe you said, look, if she gets charged, it’s going to be because they kind of found a bunch of things that they’re going to go after. I
think so personally.
I mean, I, I know, I don’t know that for sure. And it is certainly possible that This could kind of be an Al Capone situation where they finally get, they finally get the big fraudster on, you know, tax evasion, right, or they finally get Laura on perjury, right, because they can’t put together for whatever reason a massive fraud case.
I would be surprised if they move forward with an entire criminal prosecution on perjury. It’s just very hard to prove. And it’s not, it’s the type of thing that would result in a lot of selective prosecution, I think is probably one of the best ways to say it. Because I think there’s a lot of perjury, big perjury and small perjury that goes on, right?
And I, it just isn’t really done. And I can’t, I would be, I’d be surprised, it’s not impossible, but I would be surprised If she took all this time to put together a case and the only charges were perjury and maybe like doctoring, you know, evidence that, that would surprise me. It’s possible.
How often do fees for appeals get awarded?
Do you think it is likely in this case?
The answer is I don’t know in Arizona. I probably should have read that, you know, all the appellate briefing on that in California, it’s not common. But but it’s more common in family law because all the family law statutes that apply to the trial court can apply to, to appeal.
So, I, I don’t know that, I mean, Jingra seems to think he’s going to get his appeal, his, you know, I mean, he thinks he’s going to win, which is ridiculous, but he also thinks he’s going to get all his fees paid. And that would, that would really surprise me. You know, I don’t know the standard under Arizona law.
If there’s a prevailing party fee, then if they’re prevailing party fees, whoever wins gets their fees paid automatically. Then, then certainly whoever wins is going to stand a good chance of getting their fees paid. But absent that, I’d be really surprised.
Well, that was the last thing I was going to ask you was, you know, looking over everything now, seeing his appeal, seeing Woodnick’s response.
Yeah.
Do you think his argument was good enough to where you think the three appellate judges are going to say, yeah, we’re reversing this. And remember if it is reversed, It’s not because the appellate judges have said, Hey, she was pregnant. This is all, this is all based on essentially a technicality. Is
that the chance, the chance that this would turn on the appellate judges saying.
You know, I, I find Judge Mata’s conclusion that she was not credibly pregnant to be an abuse of discretion. I’m reversing on that basis, I think is virtually zero. I think it’s just not going to happen. So if they’re, if they do win, it is going to be a it’s going to be because they find that somehow the fees, I think it would be because they’ve determined the fees were awarded under Rule 26.
And the Rule 26 safe harbor was not complied with, to me, the only issue that looks like it has any chance to survive is if they’re able to, is if Gingras is able to persuade the court that these fees were awarded under Rule 26 and I don’t see the bases for that conclusion. That’s the only pathway to victory I see.
I think these other pathways the structural error is ridiculous. The the fact that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to sanction when it’s an abusive discretion standard is ridiculous. So,
you know, So at that, so Gingras now gets to respond to what Woodnick wrote and then that’s it. He’ll ask for oral arguments, right?
And that’ll be in a couple months, probably. Yeah.
And there’s usually an oral argument as a matter of right.
Would that be streamed or we get audio of it live or maybe right after it happens? I don’t
know. I don’t know in Arizona. A lot in, in federal court, there are a lot, you can stream a lot of them.
I mean, the Supreme court streams You know, appellate or Supreme Court arguments. Yeah, I mean, I, I think this could take a while, and, you know, we talked about this a little, but the appellate arguments can, can range from like really fascinating, like I, I think Supreme Court arguments are super fascinating, right?
You know, I mean, they’re really engaging and really, you know, they ask questions and hypotheticals that are so interesting, they can range from that to like the most boring thing. that you could ever imagine. Because if it’s not, and this is where the name of my show comes from, Hot Bench, right? If it’s not a hot bench, which means a bench that’s asking a lot of questions, then it’s 20 minutes of Gingras like reading his pre canned speech and then 20 minutes of Woodnick reading his pre canned speech and then they sit down.
So it could, it could really run the gamut from like very engaged and interesting and asking all sorts of, you know, counterfactual, you know, hypotheticals and things like that. to, to very boring.
So what would some of the, what would some of the appellate judges be asking during the oral arguments if they were to pepper Gingras with questions or wouldn’t it?
Like what are the, what would they be after? What are they looking for?
I, I would be asking because we know that there is no definitive law on the issue of this kind of overlap with rule 26 sanctions. and other type of sanctions, they’ll be, they’ll be basically saying to him, they’ll be basically putting Woodnick’s argument to him, right?
And saying, you know, think about this. If we take your position to the logical conclusion, right? If we take, if we assume you’re right, and that once rule 26 motion has been filed, all fees or, you know, all sanctions require a safe harbor. That would mean, and then there would probably be a, for instance, you know, in a case where someone did X, Y, and Z, they couldn’t be sanctioned.
Right? Where someone, you know, beats up the judge after the rule 26 motion is withdrawn. It couldn’t be sanctioned, you know? How is that, how can you possibly defend that being an appropriate outcome? It’s kind of things like that, you know? And, and similarly, you know, the appellate courts will usually put it to both sides.
You know, they’ll probably say similar things, you know, to wouldn’t it? Wouldn’t, isn’t it unfair if you file a rule 26 motion and you don’t give, you know, notice to then just file the same motion under a different statute to save yourself? Isn’t that kind of unfair? Doesn’t that kind of make Rule 26’s safe harbor irrelevant?
So they ask those kind of questions, right? And like, you know, and then sometimes they’ll ask some questions about the cases and stuff, but it’s, it’s typically a time to kind of go outside the brief. And to kind of draw out the arguments and see, see what’s right.
So you were under the impression that he’s probably not going to win this appeal, but after the oral arguments happen, Say they happen in a couple months.
We’re going to get a decision before the end of 2025, right?
I would think so, yes.
Because it’s
This is not a particularly complex appeal, and it’s not The record is not particularly huge compared to a lot of cases. I mean, imagine a lot of the huge cases that get appealed, you know? Like Harvey Weinstein.
Like, think about the years of that case, you know? And a however many month trial, you know? The record is comparatively small here. I would imagine we would get a decision. And again, I think there’s a chance the decision might just be like judgment upheld. I mean, Yeah, that was,
that was something I asked you and I guess explain it and we’ll just, I promise we’ll end with this.
When the appellate judges rule on this, is this going to be a Mata 19 page? This is what we think, or is it just like, yeah, we’re upholding the decision by judge Mata move on. Like, is it going to be something simple or it’s obviously hard to predict, but it’s very hard
to predict. A lot of times appeals in cases like this when they’re not, I mean, if this were a case where there wasn’t a bunch of attention on the case, there would be a very good chance that if it was upheld, it would just be, it wouldn’t say nothing, but it would be very short.
Right? The trial court did not err. The trial court did not do this. The trial court properly awarded sanctions under this statute. Therefore, we uphold. if it’s going to reverse or if the, if the appellate court is going to reverse or if the appellate court really finds these issues like engaging and wants to, to create a published opinion, then you’re going to see the type of cases that are cited in these briefs, where, where they go through the whole thing.
Here’s the history of the case. Here’s the relevant law. Here’s our analysis, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it’s hard to know.
And I, and I think if they do upheld, if they do uphold it, They wouldn’t have a long explanation, right? They could, but you don’t think they would?
They could. It’s less likely, right? The reason to uphold it would be to basically say, we’re going to uphold it.
And we are going to explain that it is totally appropriate. To award sanctions under a different statute, even after a rule 26 motion has been withdrawn, but the chance of that is less likely.
Okay. And if it is upheld, Gingras has mentioned possibly going to the Supreme court with this for the Supreme court to look at the case after he’s already lost and lost in the trial on June 10th and then lose the appeal.
He says it’s not necessarily over, you know, cause he has a problem taking things. What do you think? The chances of that happening are,
I mean, I don’t, this, this is also dependent on what type of most Supreme courts do not have, or most highest courts. Cause you know, they’re not always called the Supreme court, but in New York, the lower courts are the Supreme courts and it gets all complicated.
Most highest courts in the, in a state and jurisdiction. You don’t have an automatic right to have your case heard by you can, you know, theoretically have them decide certain issues and, you know, kick it back down, but there’s no automatic right to have them fully take up your entire case, right?
Because otherwise, everybody who lost an appeal would go to the Supreme Court, but I don’t know what the standard of review is. to get your case up to the Supreme Court of Arizona. If it’s a, if it’s an appeal as a matter of right it looks like there may be, so it, it, it looks like she, they, they might have a, I mean, they have a right to obviously ask the Supreme Court to review the decision.
I just don’t know. I just don’t know what the chances are that the Supreme Court would be allowed to kind of decline to take it up in Arizona because I don’t know how broad their jurisdiction goes in terms of taking cases or not taking cases.
Well, this is a fascinating two hour conversation. For those that don’t know you have agreed to come to the fan appreciation party this year.
That’s right. I have. I will be there. It
looks like, and you’ve looked, you, I believe you looked at your schedule to make sure that you’re not filming.
I did. In fact, they just changed the schedule. And I said, Oh no. And it’s still fine. Okay. So
you’re going to be there. I’m telling you right now. I mean, there’s a lot of people coming to the party that I think we’re in the chat tonight and you are going to, you know, probably have to talk about this case more.
By the way, it’s such a cool thing that you do that. I think it’s really neat. I didn’t know. I didn’t know that that was something you did and it’s really, it’s, that’s really cool. It’s a wonderful thing to do for your fans and. I think it’s awesome.
Yeah, no, it’s, it really started out as, cause it started on my 40th.
It was the week after my 40th birthday. And I’ve never been a birthday guy. I don’t care about, Hey, it’s my birthday month. Everyone, you know, look at me, which is what a lot of people do. And I’m just like, I’ve never cared about my birthday. But when my 40th rolled around, I said, I’m going to go to Vegas.
And I’ll, you know, I’ll, I’ll open it up to anybody that wants to show up. And we, I think we have like 30 or 35 my first year. And then it just got progressively bigger. This is the night, this is the ninth year of it. For the first eight, for the first seven years, it was in my room at Mandalay Bay. I just had a, I had a a suite, a very enlarged suite that was about 18, 1900 square feet.
So I would. We’d have it. Yeah. It was a nice size room. And it had a media room in the suite. And then last year, and then it just got too stuffy in there because I started allowing more people and I was just running around sweating the whole night. So then last year I moved it to the Venetian and we had it at a restaurant, which was great.
But then this year, like, 50th as well, I was just like, this is what I want to go all out for. So next year I’m definitely downsizing again. It’s going back to probably the Venetian next year, but this year I’m At the house of blues. I’m, I’m so glad that you can make it. And I just wanted to prepare you because people know you’re coming now.
No, it’s going to be fine. I’m super excited. And I’m a Vegas person too. So it’s like, it’s fun.
Yeah. Finding out from you that you’re a craps player. I mean, it just, that’s even more awesome. Cause we’re, we’re definitely rolling craps. That weekend at some point, maybe after the party, we go straight to the crap stables, but yeah, that’d be fun.
Can’t wait. Rachel, thanks for coming on. You’re probably coming on again next week. Just on audio to, we, I definitely want to talk to you about the, the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni thing, and you, you’ve read the Rachel Lindsay. You haven’t, did you read the, did you pull up the paperwork or you just read the story?
No,
I haven’t pulled up the paperwork. I haven’t pulled up the judgment, but I’ve read, I’ve read what she has said. And that, I think there’s a lot to read between the lines. It gave me a much better idea of what actually happened. And just listening to what had been reported prior to her speaking.
Interesting. Yeah. Cause the last that we had heard was he requested, I think 16, 000 a month in child support. She countered with 10 and then the judge said 13, five, like basically him in the middle. And then all of a sudden we find out that the divorce is finalized. She owes him 500 grand less the three payments she’s already made to him.
So like four 66, he owes them two 30 this week and two 30 next year and they’re done. Yeah. Wiping their hands of everything. So what, like, we’ll talk about that. Like why, why go that route? Why not just ask for 13, 000 a month until whenever what he was getting, which was spouses for, I don’t just real quick, what is spouse support?
How long would it have lasted? How long do you get spousal support for? So in California,
if your marriage is less than 10 years, which I’m sure there’s was, right? Yeah,
I think it was four or five, yeah.
Yeah, get spousal support for half the length of the marriage.
Half the length of the marriage,
okay. Once you go beyond the 10 year mark or approximately the 10 year mark, it’s a different calculus, but the rule of thumb for zero to 10 years is half the length of the marriage.
So he’s probably been getting spousal support for close to that. But my guess is, especially when you have short marriages like that, that the, I bet the thought of paying spousal support to her was so distasteful. She, she wanted to write a check and be done, not have to write him a check every month.
Okay. Anyway Rachel, thanks so much for coming on. Thank you everyone for the questions, for tuning in. I really appreciate it. This will be saved on my YouTube channel and be able to access it. Fairly shortly, I believe. So again we’ll talk to you again soon, Rachel. Thanks again. You got it. Thanks everyone.
Thank you so much to Rachel for coming on. I know you all enjoyed that. Even if you haven’t been following the case since September of 2023, and you’ve maybe taken a glance at it here and there, you’ve heard me talk about it. I think just listening to Rachel talk about the case, it’s so interesting because she really does explain it to the lay person, which is great.
Who just doesn’t understand law like myself. It’s just very easy to understand her. I could really listen to her talk about cases all day long. And I’m telling you right now, Rachel’s going to be on podcast number 4 27 next week, because she’s coming on to talk about the Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni case, along with she’s going to give her thoughts on Rachel and Brian’s divorce.
So back to back weeks with Rachel Juarez, I can’t complain. She makes my job so easy because. It’s very easy to listen to, very easy to listen to her explain things, and it allows me to ask follow up questions where I’m not too confused. Rule 26 still is a tad confusing to me, but I get the gist of it. I wouldn’t be able to explain it, but when I hear it, I understand it.
You know? I don’t know. Maybe that sounds weird. Anyway, thanks to Rachel for coming on. I really appreciate it. Thank you all for listening. Please follow me on Apple podcasts. Also rate and review, but you got to hit play. It’s the only way it counts as a download. Remember. Daily roundup posted two hours ago.
Your spoilers episode by episode spoilers. All your eliminations for grant season is now up on that podcast. It’ll be up on my website Tuesday at the latest. See if I can get around to it today and have it up tomorrow. I don’t know, but if I don’t get to it this weekend, I’ll probably do it Monday or Tuesday of next week.
And then the sports daily was posted an hour ago. So for Rachel Juarez, I’m reality. Steve, thank you all for tuning in. I really appreciate it. And I will talk to you tomorrow.
Send all links and emails to: steve@realitysteve.com. To follow me on Twitter, it’s: www.twitter.com/RealitySteve. Instagram name is RealitySteve, or join my Reality Steve Facebook Fan Page. Talk to you tomorrow.
