Im staggered that Nick may have been right on the money again.
Chupps incompetence and constant adherence to how a prior case went would follow suit with his laziness and a lack of knowledge about these preceding's.
I just cant wait to see what got Chupps head perked up, and has him digging into past record to compare.
Hoping for Chupp to have his own redemption arc!
If Chupp changes his tune (not just in a 'flips the ruling' way, but in an attitude way) from now on, this may be what Nick was talking about months ago, where the last thing you want in a TCPA motion (as a defendant) is for the judge to get
interested in the case. Chupp was clearly uninterested in the case when the initial hearing hit and wanted it all off his docket, but as of this latest hearing, it's possible he's
gotten interested.
That said, my own theory is that if he's paying more attention, he's been doing it since the 'death threats'. Bear with me, but up until that point, Chupp had been pretty lazy about everything. He'd respond to things by not ruling on it, like 'you're not going to file TCPA like that, right?' and 'I probably will look at it, can't see how I wouldn't', 'lol public figure sure, there's lots of people here', and generally seemed lost, confused and uninterested. Then he gets these death threats sent to him by Marchi and he orders an emergency hearing, demands immediate mediation, and appears to realize for the first time there might be some substance to the case.
So here's what I suspect: Chupp didn't read a darn thing up until the death threats. He just relied on the evidence brief handed to him in the hearing. This is why he dismissed all motions to strike, because he didn't want to be bothered with reading them, and he granted all the extensions - he didn't want to bother reading into it. The hearing shows up, he assumes this is some petty, unimportant defamation case where one guy got mad about other people saying things he didn't like. He doesn't do any research into the TCPA before the hearing and so doesn't know the standards for it very well. This is why he agrees with Sam that Jamie's statement would need fact-finding but still dismisses the claim before that - he had no flippin' clue what the statement was before then.
He gets the death threats and pushes them to mediation, still not getting the situation. They don't settle out like he hopes, and he gives a glance over at the TCPA filing. He barely reads it, thus getting Ron's role hilariously wrong, and just shoves it off his docket because it's probably getting appealed and judges who know TCPA better than him can look at the whole thing. From that emergency hearing onward you see he's more alert in transcripts, asks more questions and is more bewildered by the defense. Martinez is credited with being very smooth and efficient, but Chupp also doesn't talk over him and literally tell him to shut up, either.
This all culminates in the billing stuff. So wouldn't it be funny if the defense sending those 'death threats' to him to try to poison the judge against Vic actually was the trigger to get Chupp off of his butt and pay attention to a case he'd written off as 'a slapfight between cartoon people'? Especially if their perjury in the frivolous billing and Lemoine's insane superbill is what finally pushed him into this deeper investigation/possible demand of unredacted billing.