It's wait and see time with Judge Chupp. He is going forward with the fees on his end, but is not wanting to step on the appeals toes. You can make your own impressions of Chupp's actions concerning the appellate court.
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There's been some speculation on KF about how much Chupp "fears" the appeals court. After reading this transcript, I think he doesn't care so much if they overrule him on a highly technical mess where he got a procedure wrong. But he
does care if he botches things so badly that one side is screwed out of his legal right to appeal, or the other side is screwed out of lawyer fees because he neglected to file a judgement.
Maybe that's how he always is, using the COA as a backstop for an honest mistakes on things he doesn't understand, while taking care not to screw people out of proper access to the courts. You could read that attitude into his leniency towards the defendants, plus his leniency towards Ty's filing mishaps.
A less charitable interpretation is that he was lazy with the TCPA, then realized how bad his ruling looked after the hearing (which is when the mediation got ordered). Now he's taking care not to "finalize" anyone getting screwed, so that it doesn't look like he
permanently harmed either side. The complete dismissal, leaving the Slatosch issue open, rejecting sanctions on Lemoine, and the likely rubber-stamping of attorneys fees, all make for easy, clean reversal opportunities.
I'm sticking with my "lazy not dumb" conclusion for now. I don't see outright malice here, even if he's just playing along with Martinez to cover his own ass. Maybe Martinez just resonates with the judge better than Ty. I am now curious to see how Chupp would act in post-appeals discovery.
(I also want to see a Martinez vs Johnson square off over some of the substance of the case. But Marchi's dismissal is the most likely to survive appeal. Too bad)