The discovery dispute that has been ongoing (and which I am going to explore in full over the coming days, though I would refer the reader to Groklaw to get up to speed until then) was heard today (8/24/09) before Judge Alsup with this terse ruling (though in all fairness it was just a minute entry and not a typical full-blown Order):

ORDERED AFTER HEARING
Parties shall file supplemental briefs by 8/27/09. Defendant shall pay Plaintiff $5,000.00 in attorneys fees for bringing the motion.

Maybe now Psystar will figure out that it is not all fun and games with silly threats and contests on your website when dealing with the Federal Court System. Note that it was Psystar itself that was sanctioned, not their law firm.

Since, oddly enough, the English word “sanction” also has the opposite meaning of “to approve,” Wikipedia’s concise layman’s summary of legal sanctions is helpful:

Sanctions are penalties or other means of enforcement used to provide incentives for obedience with the law, or with rules and regulations.[1] Criminal sanctions can take the form of serious punishment, such as capital punishment, prison time, or severe fines. Within the civil law context, sanctions are usually monetary fines, levied against a party to a lawsuit or his/her attorney, for violating rules of procedure, or for abusing the judicial process. The most severe sanction in a civil lawsuit is the involuntary dismissal, with prejudice, of a complaining party’s cause of action, or of the responding party’s answer. This has the effect of deciding the entire action against the sanctioned party without recourse, except to the degree that an appeal or trial de novo may be allowed because of reversible error.

Since no further detail was given, all we can really conclude is that Judge Alsup was annoyed to the tune of $5,000.00. Lauren could have bought herself a totally tricked out Mac Pro for that.

In minor news, the Bankruptcy Court recently corrected a clerical error in its prior Order making it clear that the case was dismissed with prejudice for a period of twelve months (and not six as it had mistakenly said in one part of the prior Order).

In addition to her position as Assistant Editor at World of Apple, dizzle runs idrankthekoolaid, an Apple fangrl satire blog, and is an Administrator and Hostess at MyAppleSpace and their vidcast MASTv.