Golden v. Stein
| Docket Number | 4:18-cv-00331-JAJ-HCA |
| Decision Date | 07 March 2022 |
| Citation | 589 F.Supp.3d 1002 |
| Parties | Glenn GOLDEN and G2 Database Marketing, Inc., Plaintiffs, v. Jonathan A. STEIN, Defendant. Jonathan Stein, dba Law Offices of Jonathan Stein, Counterclaimant, v. Glenn Golden, dba G2 Database Marketing; and G2 Database Marketing, Inc., Counterclaim Defendants. Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe, Intervenor Plaintiff, v. Jonathan Stein dba Law Offices of Jonathan Stein; Linda Hong Sun Stein; St. Monica Development Company, L.L.C. ; Law Offices of Jonathan Stein, P.C. ; and Does 1-20, Intervenor Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Southern District of Iowa |
Benjamin Granfield Arato, Steven P. Wandro, Alison Florence Kanne, Wandro & Associates, P.C., Des Moines, IA, for Plaintiffs/Counterclaim Defendants.
Jonathan Alan Stein, Pro Hac Vice, The Law Offices of Jonathan Stein, Los Angeles, CA, for Counterclaimant.
Bradley R. Kruse, Dickinson Mackaman Tyler & Hagen PC, Des Moines, IA, Armen Manasserian, Pro Hac Vice, Chora Young LLP, Pasadena, CA, for Intervenor Plaintiff.
Jonathan Alan Stein, Santa Barbara, CA, Pro Se.
David J. Dutton, Joshua M. Moon, Dutton Daniels Hines Kalkhoff Cook & Swanson PLC, Waterloo, IA, John Kass Rubiner, Pro Hac Vice, Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Jonathan Alan Stein, Pro Hac Vice, The Law Offices of Jonathan Stein, Los Angeles, CA, for Defendant.
Thomas P. Frerichs, Frerichs Law Office, Waterloo, IA, Ronald Durwin Tym, Pro Hac Vice, The Tym Firm, Agoura Hills, CA, for Intervenor Defendant Linda Hong Sun Stein.
Thomas P. Frerichs, Frerichs Law Office, Waterloo, IA, David J. Dutton, Joshua M. Moon, Dutton Daniels Hines Kalkhoff Cook & Swanson PLC, Waterloo, IA, John Kass Rubiner, Pro Hac Vice, Freeman Mathis & Gary, LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Ronald Durwin Tym, Pro Hac Vice, The Tym Firm, Agoura Hills, CA, for Intervenor Defendants St. Monica Development Company, LLC, Law Offices of Jonathan Stein, P.C.
This action originally involved only the claims of Glenn Golden and G2 Database Marketing, Inc., (collectively, Golden) against their former attorney, Jonathan A. Stein, for professional malpractice in underlying intellectual property litigation and Stein's counterclaims to collect unpaid attorney's fees and costs incurred in the underlying litigation plus collection costs. The Gabrielino-Tongva Tribe was granted leave to intervene, however, claiming an interest relating to the property that is the subject of this action—specifically, the portion of the settlement funds from the underlying intellectual property litigation deposited with the Clerk of Court (the Federal Deposit) and Stein's causes of action in this litigation—for the purpose of determining the Tribe's right to, and right to execute on, levies against that property based on a judgment against Stein that the Tribe obtained in California state court. This action is now before the court on the Tribe's July 8, 2021, Motion For Summary Judgment [Dkt. No. 387]. For the reasons set out below, the Tribe's July 8, 2021, Motion For Summary Judgment [Dkt. No. 387] is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part .
For the sake of simplicity, in the course of this decision, the court will refer to the intervenor defendants—Jonathan Stein, his wife Linda Hong Sun Stein (Hong Sun), his Law Offices in their "dba" or P.C. form, and St. Monica Development Company, L.L.C.—collectively as "Stein," unless the circumstances require otherwise. In doing so, the court does not intend to attribute to other intervenor defendants, such as Hong Sun, actions taken by Stein that are at issue in the parties’ claims or defenses, unless otherwise indicated.
The court has rarely, if ever, encountered factual statements in support of or resistance to summary judgment to which so many objections have been made. This court has also never encountered a case in which the parties have asserted that even the most trivial, irrelevant, or immaterial factual disputes are dispositive of a summary judgment motion. Furthermore, many of the parties’ purported factual statements are legal conclusions or legal arguments, rather than factual assertions. In short, gleaning genuine issues of material fact from the parties’ submissions has been an unusually difficult process for the court. See, e.g., Villanueva v. City of Scottsbluff , 779 F.3d 507, 510 (8th Cir. 2015) .
A great many of Stein's objections to the Tribe's statements of fact are pursuant to Rules 401, 403, and 404 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. While those rules protect jurors from irrelevant or unduly prejudicial evidence, excluding evidence pursuant to those rules is premature on a court's review of the record at summary judgment. The evidence is admissible but the court leaves it to the next judge to determine whether to admit it. Objections based on those rules are even less of a concern when, as here, the Tribe's claims will be tried to the court, because they are equitable.
That point deserves some further development. There is no jury demand in the Complaint In Intervention. Although the intervenor defendants’ Answers "demand a jury trial to determine some or all factual issues, as well as any non-equitable relief sought by or against" them, no party has cited any authority requiring or permitting a jury trial of an equitable claim pursuant to IOWA CODE § 630.16, a claim for declaratory judgment pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2201, et seq. , or Stein's defense based on IOWA CODE § 684.8(1). None of these statutes expressly authorizes a jury trial. Also, the nature of the case and the relief sought are equitable rather than legal, where the Tribe seeks a lien, injunctive relief, and declaratory relief, and Stein seeks to prevent such relief on equitable grounds. See Dix v. Casey's Gen. Stores, Inc. , 961 N.W.2d 671, 680 (Iowa 2021) () (quoting Hedlund v. State , 930 N.W.2d 707, 718 (Iowa 2019) ). Thus, the trial of the Tribe's claims and Stein's defense to them will be to the court.
In addition to objections to certain factual statements, some of which were based on evidentiary grounds, Stein filed Joint Evidentiary Objections By Defendants-In-Intervention To Declarations Submitted With Tribe's Motion For Summary Judgment. Stein levels such objections at approximately half of the 92 paragraphs of the Tribe's counsel's declaration and approximately half of the 14 paragraphs of the declaration of the chairwoman of the Tribe's Tribal Council. The court notes that many of Stein's objections to the declarations are to counsel's description of documents or their contents, or challenges to the chairwoman's personal knowledge of documents, but not to the admissibility of the documents themselves, which are found in the parties’ Appendices. For example, Stein objects to counsel's reference to the November 8, 2018, TENTATIVE DECISION; ORDERS of the California court as the "Compensatory Damages Award" on the ground that it is purportedly a misstatement of the record. Considering the nature of the objections and the Tribe's responses to them, the court finds that the best course is to decide the Tribe's Motion For Summary Judgment on the basis of the exhibits submitted by the parties, which are not themselves challenged, and the statements in the form of deposition testimony and sworn declarations of persons who are parties and witnesses in this action to the extent such statements provide factual information rather than opinions, characterizations, or information outside of the declarants’ or the witnesses’ personal knowledge.
The court declines the parties’ invitation to rule on each and every objection to the factual statements or to each paragraph of the declarations, lest this decision become nearly incomprehensible, overlong, and unbearably tedious. The court has, instead, attempted to maintain the focus on potentially dispositive factual matters and factual disputes.
Few of the factual statements that follow are in precisely the form the parties offered them. Instead, where possible, the court has limited or rephrased the parties’ statements to avoid language that appears to the court to be the basis for an opposing party's objection. That language often characterizes the contents of documents or peoples’ actions instead of objectively reporting them. Nor has the court found it necessary to include every statement offered by the parties, whether disputed or undisputed, or actually a legal conclusion or a legal argument. Thus, unless otherwise indicated, the facts that follow are undisputed—or cannot reasonably be disputed.
On November 2, 2006, the Tribe sued Jonathan Stein, Law Offices of Jonathan Stein (Law Offices), and St. Monica Development Company, L.L.C. (St. Monica) in California state court alleging fifteen causes of action arising from a failed casino project. Nearly thirteen years later, on August 27, 2019, the Tribe obtained a judgment of $20,411,067.23 in compensatory damages and $7,000,000.00 in punitive damages (the Judgment) against Stein and an adjudication that Law Offices and St. Monica were Stein's alter egos. Only some of the parties’ numerous submissions about that litigation require mention, here.
On November 8, 2018, prior to the entry of the Judgment, the California court entered a "TENTATIVE DECISION; ORDERS," in which, among other things, the court found in favor of the...
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