Negative ANN article about Cirrus

Ron Wanttaja said:
If it HADN'T happened last Wednesday, I'm sure we would have seen a filing either from Cirrus howling for blood or a joint note with new date/time.
Oh yeah - skip to 10:20 of this video for confirmation ("Had to deal with... 9:30 in the morning to 5:30 ..."):

Then again, perhaps the deposition did not go all that well:

03/20/2013 Motion (Generic)
for Expenses incurred in Connection with Defendants' Improper Suspension of Deposition

Ron Wanttaja
 
Then again, perhaps the deposition did not go all that well:

03/20/2013 Motion (Generic)
for Expenses incurred in Connection with Defendants' Improper Suspension of Deposition

Ron Wanttaja

Shocking!

What kind of an assclown would....

Oh, yeah. Nevermind.
 
The bird in contention is sooooo getting into an unfortunate incident before it's all over. Engine lost power and into a lake it chutes, oops.
 
Then again, perhaps the deposition did not go all that well:

03/20/2013 Motion (Generic)
for Expenses incurred in Connection with Defendants' Improper Suspension of Deposition
I'm guessing the motion goes into detail into the actions that caused the alleged "improper suspension." However, I'm going to wait a bit before ordering...I expect Campbell's attorney will file a rebuttal. Both should be entertaining.

Ron Wanttaja
 
The bird in contention is sooooo getting into an unfortunate incident before it's all over. Engine lost power and into a lake it chutes, oops.
As far as I can tell, Campbell has not admitted where the Cirrus is being kept. Cirrus won't know where to pick it up. I suspect they can't enter his house just on suspicion that it's there.

Campbell has filed appeals in the past (The first Sun-n-Fun case, a printer lawsuit he lost in the early 2000s, and an attempted appeal in the bankruptcy) so he could claim that he's hanging on to the airplane because an appeal.

Or, of course, it could already be out of state...with Campbell planning on following it. Remember, he'd originally asked Cirrus to register it to him at a South Carolina address. Relocate, and he can probably delay things another two years.

Ron Wanttaja
 
As far as I can tell, Campbell has not admitted where the Cirrus is being kept. Cirrus won't know where to pick it up. I suspect they can't enter his house just on suspicion that it's there.

You're assuming he has a house. Haha. Facts not in evidence. :)

I picture it more like a Van... Down by the river. :) :) :)
 
You're assuming he has a house. Haha. Facts not in evidence. :)

I picture it more like a Van... Down by the river. :) :) :)

That raises an interesting point. I don't believe Zoom lives on the airpark anymore, so the plane's whereabouts may indeed be a mystery!
 
Then again, perhaps the deposition did not go all that well:

03/20/2013 Motion (Generic)
for Expenses incurred in Connection with Defendants' Improper Suspension of Deposition
Gracious! Cirrus' attorney has already scheduled a meeting with the judge on this:
03/22/2013 Notice of Hearing on Plaintiff's Motion for Expenses incurred in Connection with Suspension of Deposition

Cirrus' attorney was laying groundwork in January and February that Campbell was dodging depositions; he obviously wants to push more supporting data in front of the judge.

My guess is that Campbell got upset at a question or a line of questioning (such as touching on his veracity) and either stormed out or got his attorney to stop the deposition. I would think, though, that if Campbell's attorney stopped the deposition, he would have already filed a note with the judge claiming improper actions by Cirrus' attorney during the process.

Typically, hearings have been scheduled 3-4 weeks in advance, so Campbell has plenty of time to file a motion giving his side of what happened.

I presume the motion for expenses would for Cirrus' attorney and staff's time for the period of the interruption, as well as that for the court reporter and the facility rented. If the judge grants the motion, does Campbell then have to pay *now* instead of waiting for the suit to get decided?

Ron Wanttaja
 
I'm guessing the motion goes into detail into the actions that caused the alleged "improper suspension." However, I'm going to wait a bit before ordering...I expect Campbell's attorney will file a rebuttal. Both should be entertaining.
Truer word were never spoke. Turn off the TV, boot up the Ipad.

For those who have yawned their way though some of the warmup cards, take a look at the attached. We've got Campbell threatening Cirrus' attorney ("I'm calling the FBI and I'm going to have you charged with extortion"), we've got lawyers snarling at each other over sartorial issues ("Mr. Mercer, there's only one of us wearing a tie here today, so if you want to talk to me about professionalism in the practice of law, we can do that."), we got the defense wanting a judge on-call to settle arguments when Zoom deposes again.

Why? Well, it seems Cirrus' attorney decided to ask Campbell about some little problem he had with the NTSB a while back....oh, and he brought up about Campbell impersonating a doctor and trying to jump off the World Trade Center. Mr. Campbell did not, apparently, appreciate it.

Oh, and Cirrus is claiming they have a witness to Campbell signing the loan paperwork.

Starting to look like a trip to the trial in June is going to be a real E-ticket experience.

The hearing for the dueling motions is scheduled for 9 April.

Ron Wanttaja
 

Attachments

  • Motion For Deposition Expenses - 3-20-2013.pdf
    281.3 KB · Views: 70
  • Second Motion for Restraining Order - 3-25-2013.pdf
    641.2 KB · Views: 63
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Well, they pale in comparison to the clash-of-the-Titans tones of the two opposing motions, but here are some of the additional filings in the last two weeks.

Both Campbell and KSA received Requests for Production that demand documents that Campbell mentioned in his last set of interrogatories.

The R for P ALSO demand copies of 20 formal documents that include examples of Campbell's signature... as well as 15 individual examples of his signature. This ties in to the previous notice that Cirrus is going to have a handwriting analyst testify.

Campbell's attorney submitted an amended notice of Deposition, related to the Cirrus deposition that is scheduled for 4 April and now April 5 as well. It originally William King as the only deponee. The new one adds Cathy Nyen, Pat Waddich, and Todd Simmons of Cirrus, plus (drum roll) Dale Klapmeier. Note that Alan Klapmeier, his brother, was deposed last July.

Ron Wanttaja
 
:popcorn:

So.... what does (Pause in the proceedings.) mean? On page 21.
 
I dont think the proceedings of the NTSB appeals board are considered to be HIPAA (his attorney misspelled the laws shorthand) protected medical records.

I guess the question 'the NTSB has found 30 years ago that you are a pathologic liar. Are you a pathologic liar today' got him somewhat upset.

They should really sell tickets for the actual trial.
 
I guess the question 'the NTSB has found 30 years ago that you are a pathologic liar. Are you a pathologic liar today' got him somewhat upset..

I won't lie. I stood up at my desk and cheered as I read that exchange.
 
I dont think the proceedings of the NTSB appeals board are considered to be HIPAA (his attorney misspelled the laws shorthand) protected medical records.

I guess the question 'the NTSB has found 30 years ago that you are a pathologic liar. Are you a pathologic liar today' got him somewhat upset.

They should really sell tickets for the actual trial.

Do you think they should have asked: "When did you stop being a pathalogical liar?"
 
Gee, I wonder how Cirrus came to be aware of a 30+ year old hearing.

(Three cheers for the RAH-15)
 
I dont think the proceedings of the NTSB appeals board are considered to be HIPAA (his attorney misspelled the laws shorthand) protected medical records.

Remember this exchange in the first Sun-N-Fun case, when SnF's attorney introduced the NTSB transcript and Campbell's attorney objected:

MR. MOODY: Also, Your Honor, it's hearsay. And, you know, I'm not even certain that this stuff wasn't sealed at one point in time according to some of the things that may have been mentioned.

THE COURT: Well, if it was sealed, someone sure did a poor job of doing it 'cause Mr. Wendel has it in his hands.


The fun thing, of course, is that the NTSB transcript was then accepted into evidence. Campbell can argue, in the Cirrus case, that the information is thirty years old, but it's only been a bit over ten since it was Defense Exhibit 4 in Federal Court.


Ron Wanttaja
 
One wonders which side (or both) is following this thread. :)
 
Gee, I wonder how Cirrus came to be aware of a 30+ year old hearing.

(Three cheers for the RAH-15)

I was wondering whether the Cirrus lawyers just did good homework or have been getting a bit of an assist....
 
The segment reads very much like a "Zoom's Greatest Hits" reel. One could easily substitute the Cirrus references for Sun 'n Fun, or Chuck Slusarczyk.

That's one way to build page views, I guess!

Funny, I followed link and read the article. As I was reading, I thought to myself that I just gave Zoom another click to brag about ... ain't that grand.
 
Wow, great stuff. Thanks for ordering and posting, Ron.

How about this tidbit, from Mr. Campbell's attorney?

At our last hearing, for example, Mr. Johnson's creative one-sided recitation of the "history" with the Defendants resulted in the Court stating that Mr. Campbell "needs to stop monkeying around," that this case appears to be a straight forward or simple debt collection case, and that Mr. Campbell has left crazy messages on the judicial assistant's voice mail.

Wouldn't you love to know more about said voice mails?!
 
Wouldn't you love to know more about said voice mails?!

I would say the transcript of the deposition has enough utterances by the witness to gain that impression.

(what I didn't quite figure out is whether these comments were about messages left on plaintiff counsels voicemail or somewhere at the court)
 
I was wondering whether the Cirrus lawyers just did good homework or have been getting a bit of an assist....

You mean by 'the google' ?

This stuff is readily available and known to anyone but Alan Klapmeier.
 
Oh yeah - skip to 10:20 of this video for confirmation ("Had to deal with... 9:30 in the morning to 5:30 ..."):




"Mental status examination -- this is gathered throughout the entire course
of the interview and also by asking whatever necessary specific questions.

Mr. Campbell presented himself in an outgoing, and I think, grandiose
manner, with a kind of quality of seriousness that he was in a lot of
difficulty, he wanted very much for me to understand and believe him, and I
felt, initially, that I really should believe him, but then, and that I wanted to believe him, but then, as the interview went on I began to question myself, and I found myself asking, well, just why is it that you feel you want to believe this man. That question continued in one corner of my mind as we went along. There was only minimal anxiety noted in the course of the exam, which was somewhat discrepant with the circumstances.

His vocabulary was average. His speech, on one or two occasions, seemed to me to be pressured.

JUDGE CAPPS: What do you mean by pressured?

THE WITNESS: Well, that means that he was really intent upon getting a
point across, so much so that it was hard to interrupt his flow of speech,
and that's an important clinical sign when we're looking for certain types
of feeling disorders."

(From the 1980 NTSB hearing. )
 
I am not an attorney. I have read this entire thread with as much objectivity as I could. I realize some question Mr. Campbell's mental health, but really, one can simply sign a promissory note and fly a plane away from Cirrus with no credit qualification?

Granted Campbell should have not contracted for a plane he could not afford, but how prudent is it enter into a loan agreement when a default is likely? Any credit check would have uncovered Campbell's bankruptcy. It seems clear that Cirrus was paying Campbell for promotion - that doesn't sound very prudent either.
There are a lot of interesting aspects along the lines you mention. Cirrus offers loans for purchasers through its Cirrus Finance branch. Campbell's wasn't; the loan is directly from the company.

The answer, I think, is Alan Klapmeier, the then-CEO of the company. Campbell and Klapmeier are apparently friends. I'd guess Klapmeier insisted on Cirrus itself financing this particular loan, and I'm also guessing he directed his company to make the loan...regardless of any credit check results. It was in his power as CEO. In fact, I'm guessing he was the ONLY person who could approve it.

Klapmeier, of course, already knew that he was being fired as CEO at the time the loan was made (though he remained with the company in another capacity for six more months).

Campbell claims that Cirrus gave him the airplane with no written agreement as to the terms of the deal; I find I'm a bit skeptical. Campbell had Klapmeier deposed last summer (~seven months prior to his own deposition). He's now started another aircraft company in competition with Cirrus, and I wouldn't be surprised if Cirrus' lawyer questioned his motives during the deposition.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I was wondering whether the Cirrus lawyers just did good homework or have been getting a bit of an assist....
Well, good homework wouldn't be much of a problem...do a search on Campbell, and the Zoomland site usually comes up fairly high on the results.

The question I have is how much homework *Campbell's* attorney did.

I expect most of an attorney's research time is spent on the opponent. Yet Campbell had been sloughed off by three previous attorneys. You'd think it would have made the guy a bit curious...and cautious.

Yet... when you look on his web page, you see the guy is a pilot. Likely he's familiar with ANN; he may have had no reason to be skeptical about Campbell before and thought this would be a straightforward case of defending journalistic freedom. Surely the faxes he sent to Cirrus' attorney (included on his *first* motion for a restraining order) eerily echoes Campbell. I posted that motion a while back.

The excerpt from the deposition transcript can be deceptive; they're intended to put Cirrus' attorney in the worst possible light, and one shouldn't draw too strong of conclusions regarding what happened. But Page 15 of the PDF for the second motion for protection order seems to show what happened when Cirrus brought up the NTSB case. Campbell's attorney immediately objected, just at the mention of the case.

To me, this indicates that the attorney was aware of it, and that either it could be damaging or Campbell wasn't going to be willing to talk about it (or both, of course).

But what happens when Cirrus' attorney asks about his attempted World Trade Center jump?

"(Pause in the proceedings)"

Why a pause? Did Campbell go into full Donald Duck mode? You'd think the transcript would have captured at least part of it.

Or...did Campbell's attorney pull him outside and ask him what the heck that was about?

If so, it implies that Campbell's attorney *wasn't* familiar with major facts of the NTSB case. The judge's findings one mention it, as well as the more in-depth discussion in the course of the transcript. Seems that reading that your client tried to base-jump off the WTC would have been remembered.

It makes you wonder about his degree of preparation. One possibility is that he knew *only as much as Campbell had told him.* That he hadn't researched it himself, and just accepted his client's assurance that it was 30-year-old medical information protected by privacy acts.

So, we get to see the judge's opinion on this. If the harassing voice mail messages Cirrus' attorney refers to *were* to the judge's staff, it could get really interesting (Remember, Campbell was without attorney for almost three months...he might well have been calling the judge's office).

The interesting question here: If the judge allows questioning about the NTSB case...will Campbell answer the questions?

Ron Wanttaja
 
I have been waiting for his counter-suit to be filed. Didn't he claim that Cirrus owes him multiples of the disputed plane value out of the advertising deal ?
 
Hasn't Cirrus spent more on attorneys fees now than they did on the plane? Where do you quit throwing good money after bad?
 
Well, money to collect on the delinquent debt is almost certainly recoverable under the contract terms. Of course, not that Zoomie has any assets to attach most likely.

I wonder if Zoom's attorney is yet beginning to realize why the judge asked him if he was sure he wanted to represent this client.
 
I wonder if Zoom's attorney is yet beginning to realize why the judge asked him if he was sure he wanted to represent this client.

I thought it was Ward Johnson who asked him that.

I suspect there wont be anyone taking that bet, but how likely do we think is a motion to withdraw from his current attorney about a week before the trial ? Based on all the lawyering surrounding the scheduling of a simple deposition (and the scope of questions to be asked), his retainer should be used up just about now.
 
Minor addition to the case file:

03/27/2013 Notice of Hearing amended 4/9/13 at 10.30 am
03/27/2013 Notice of Hearing on defendants' 2nd motion for protective order

Cirrus' motion for Deposition Expenses was already scheduled for 10:30 on the 9th...I suspect these two entries just reflect that both Cirrus' motion and Campbell's motion for a protective order will be covered at this session.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Reading the various documents has caused me to wonder if some of the attorney's filings and statements are the result of a carefully-planned strategy or due to the lack of one.
 
I suspect there wont be anyone taking that bet, but how likely do we think is a motion to withdraw from his current attorney about a week before the trial ? Based on all the lawyering surrounding the scheduling of a simple deposition (and the scope of questions to be asked), his retainer should be used up just about now.
I'm betting this is Campbell's last lawyer in this case. If he were allowed to back out now, there's no way they could hold the 18 June trial date. I suspect the judge is getting pretty tired of this case by now. Cirrus' attorney could argue that "You knew the nature of your client prior to taking the case," and claim that this was just a continuation of Campbell's delay tactics.

Besides, I think the current guy is a bit "invested" in the case. He made a big deal out of how Campbell deserves an attorney in his first motion for a protective owner; can't see him backing out on that. The judge probably wants this case over with, and would need a real good reason to let Campbell's attorney go.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Hasn't Cirrus spent more on attorneys fees now than they did on the plane? Where do you quit throwing good money after bad?

A year ago, when Cirrus filed for summary dismissal since Campbell couldn't seem to find a replacement attorney, they claimed they'd had $100,000 in legal expenses to that point. With one-and-a-half depositions and two sets of Requests for Production and Interrogatories since then, and with about six depositions to go plus three court dates, you know the legal expenses have to be exceeding the value of the airplane.

I don't doubt they've made out-of-court-settlement offers to Campbell in hopes of minimizing their costs. But I bet the Campbell wouldn't even consider turning the aircraft over as part of such a deal.

Just drop the case? Don't forget Campbell's filing on the 28th of February: "Notice of Intent to Seek Attorney's Fees." Campbell has literally served notice that he expects Cirrus to pay his legal fees unless they win. Dropping the lawsuit won't stop the bleeding. Campbell has had four lawyers suckling a near-dry teat for the last 18 months; I doubt if the current one would turn down such a bounty.

And finally, of course, there's two other hindrances: Precedent and PR. You're telling anyone who finances from Cirrus that they can get a free airplane just by switching lawyers every six months. And you're basically admitting that all of Campbell's accusations were true...certainly bad public relations.

I think if the judge decides that Cirrus can ask questions about the NTSB case, Campbell will agree on a settlement rather than have to answer. Probably he'll demand a confidentiality agreement like have been featured in several cases from his past (the Samulin and Flightworks cases, for instance). Watchers may note the change of ownership of the aircraft, but no one outside the case will know if any money changed hands (or was promised).

Both sides will say "We reached an amicable settlement." Within a year, Campbell will transition to, "Can't tell you the specific results, but we kicked their tails...." And no one will be able to prove any different.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Reading the various documents has caused me to wonder if some of the attorney's filings and statements are the result of a carefully-planned strategy or due to the lack of one.
I think the problem can be summarized in three fateful words:

He believed Campbell.

Ron Wanttaja
 
Hit man would have been cheaper, could probably still save them a few bucks at this point.
 
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"Like a weanling calf in a hailstorm" would have been the invoked terminology back home.

I think the problem can be summarized in three fateful words:

He believed Campbell.

Ron Wanttaja
 
I"You knew the nature of your client prior to taking the case," and claim that this was just a continuation of Campbell's delay tactics.
This may indeed be why the judge asked if he was sure he wanted this client.
 
Cirrus needs to hire those airplane repo guys on TV. I haven't seen anything (but haven't looked) invalidating their right to repossess the plane.
 
What is the tail number of the plane in question so I can track ownership.

This thread is interesting to say the least
 
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