Fighting tooth and nail to stop depositions in the ongoing arbitration between the uberagency and its former employees over sliced off vested equity, Range and its Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher lawyers were given a blow this week by a LA Superior Court judge, again.
“The request to stay all discovery is DENIED,” wrote Santa Monica-based Judge Mark Young after a hearing out on in the oceanside town on Tuesday.
“Here, the Court will not stay all discovery pending a demurrer,” Judge Young added in his second ruling in the matter in as many weeks out of the suit filed by CAA against “unlawful” Range in September 2024. “The Court has not ruled on the merits of the demurrer, and, in fact, Plaintiff has not even filed their opposition. Even if the Court was to grant the demurrer, there are scenarios where Plaintiff would be granted leave to amend and discovery would be appropriate.”
In terms of Range’s desire to “quash subpoenas,” Judge Young ordered up a third way and set a February 26 morning hearing at the Santa Monica courthouse. “As requested in their moving papers, the Court will consider the ex parte application as Defendant’s opening brief,” he noted. “Plaintiff’s opposition will be due February 18, 2025, with Defendant’s reply brief due February 21, 2025. The subpoenas are stayed until February 26, 2025.”
A state of affairs that has CAA seeing blue skies all over.
“Tuesday was a rough day for Range,” CAA counsel Elena Baca tells Deadline.
“In the morning, the State Court firmly rejected Range’s attempt to halt all discovery into its unlawful conduct, as alleged in CAA’s lawsuit,” the Paul Hastings lawyer details. “Then, in the evening, Range made a sudden reversal before the Court of Appeal, attempting to reframe its arguments. Clearly, Range struggled to justify its conduct to the courts, laying bare that Range had no legitimate reason for its extensive efforts to obstruct the legal process and defy court orders.”
Maybe to get the calendar ball rolling a bit faster, a motion to strike hearing in the lawsuit case has now been moved up from August 5 to May 15. This is a turn from January 29 when Range’s Gibson Dunn team scored a temporary stay in the matter from a Second Appellate court judge just two days after being denied a stay by Judge Young. “CAA’s victory dance on this petition for a stay was premature,” Range’s top attorney Orin Snyder said at the time. “We look forward to presenting our arguments to the appeals court.”
Challenging the very notions of what it means to be a manager or an agent, the not unexpected suit last year by the Bryan Lourd-run CAA bluntly called out Ranger as allegedly being created via the pursuit of unlawful profit through deception.” Coming on top of the two years and counting arbitration battle that kicked off when CAA in October 2020 pulled the plug on lucrative vested equity by former staffers who had jumped to life on the range, the matters are now both independent of each other and intrinsically entwined – especially if Range founding documents and depositions by the likes of Micelli are provided in the former for the latter.
As this is all happening in public, behind closed doors, the arbitration process is set to pick up again with a trial starting next month — if, unlike in January, Range show up. A scenario that could go either way in what CAA counsel Baca has in the past left all the sugar off and called the “multiyear strategy of constant obfuscation and evasion.”
Of course, Range’s side claim they have changed tactics, just addressed reality when it comes to showing up “The subpoenas are not ‘trial’ subpoenas at all,” Gibson Dunn’s Kahn Scolnick wrote on February 11 to the Court of Appeal over a further effort to stop Range and CEO Miceli being compelled to hand over discovery in an arbitration they weren’t even a part of at the beginning
“CAA says the subpoenas are appropriate because they required Range and Micelli ‘to appear and produce documents before the Arbitration Panel, and not directly to the parties.,’” they say “But this is wrong—the subpoenas require production to CAA’s counsel.”
“CAA also claims that if the writ is granted, it will not get Range’s and Micelli’s testimony at the arbitration trial in March 2025,” Scolnick argues. “But this is false too. As Range and Micelli already explained in their writ petition, they will comply with a trial subpoena asking them to appear at the trial in March.”
“ If that was all CAA wanted, the parties would not be here—CAA could obtain an arbitration trial subpoena, and Range and Micelli would attend the trial (with documents,” the lawyer stressed “But what CAA actually wants is pre-trial discovery, which is why it is fighting tooth-and-nail to force Range and Micelli to produce documents before the trial.”
So, we will show up if you send us a subpoena – which, according to past filings, has already been sent?
OK, a novel approach.
Late Thursday, Range’s lead lawyer Snyder wasn’t getting into the details of his own firm’s POV, but was very clear to give Range’s context on the whole maze of a matter.
“When four agents left CAA for better opportunities, CAA retaliated by canceling their equity and filing a baseless lawsuit against their new employer, Range Media,” he told Deadline. “This transparent attempt to punish former employees and intimidate current staff reveals CAA’s belief that it can control employee movement and manipulate legal processes. We are confident that the California courts will see through CAA’s tactics.”
See ya all real soon.
