6DCA Oral Argument - 2025/12/04 - Dec 04, 2025

argument

6DCA Oral Argument - 2025/12/04

California Sixth District Court of Appeal 1h 38m 8 chapters transcribed 7 days ago official recording ↗

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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.

What is the purpose of the oral argument session and who are the judges presiding?

Unknown 0:13

Is this the right height for you? Sure, that's fine. That's fine. Okay.

Adrian Rover 1:08

Or use my client has. That's okay. Okay.

Adrian Rover 2:55

All right, the Court of Appeal for the Six Appell District in that fifth down section. Acting Presiding Justice, the Honorable Adrian Rover. Associate Justice, the Honorable Cookie C Reed, Associate Justice, the Honorable Charles.

Unknown 3:07

Good morning. Please have a seat. Uh welcome to the Sixth District Court of Appeal this morning. We do have three matters on calendar and no panel changes. So uh we will move through them. I will though for the sake of our live streaming and recording ask uh for you to state appearances and give time estimates um as we call each case in order. So if you'll give us just a moment to uh connect our technology here, we do have access to the briefs and records and notes um in our laptops. Uh so we will connect that and if you do see us uh looking at them um that is what we're doing. We're consulting uh our documents related to the cases. So uh with that Um I think I will go ahead and uh call the first case uh Thomas White versus Gabriel Thompson, Wall and Harris, and it looks like all counsel are present in court this morning.

Michelle Gerhardt 4:08

Good morning. May it please the court, Michelle Gerhardt, on behalf of plaintiff and appellant Thomas White.

Unknown 4:13

And Ms. Gerhart, I think uh your time estimate was ten minutes to open, reserving five for rebuttal. Does that remain true? Okay. Thank you very much. Um then I'll go ahead and ask for appearances from Respondents Council um and I'll ask you to do that at the lectern if you don't mind, so that our uh streaming picks that up.

Robert Averse Goodman 4:33

Robert Averse Goodman for respondents, Gabriel and Thompson. Um and I believe we're planning to split our time evenly, seven and a half minutes each.

Unknown 4:41

Very good. I appreciate that.

Zachary Colbeth 4:45

Morning, Zachary Colbeth for uh James Wall and Maya Harris.

Unknown 4:49

And uh thank you very much. Thank you. All right, Ms. Gerhart, then whenever you're ready you may go ahead.

Michelle Gerhardt 4:55

Thank you, Your Honor. Uh this is an appeal of an attorney's fee award uh to defendants that prevailed in the trial court on their anti-slap motions. And this is the second appeal filed by Mr. White in relation to uh those particular motions. Uh the first appeal was decided while this appeal was pending and Justice Grover, I believe you were on the panel that issued that opinion. We've requested that the court take judicial notice of the opinion in deciding. uh the outcome of this appeal because it is directly relevant to the issues in this appeal.

Unknown 5:35

And in fact you make the point in your opening brief that the decision of this court in what I'll call white one is i essentially would make this mood.

Michelle Gerhardt 5:45

We did make that point, Your Honor. Um so I I do think from a procedural perspective this court could choose to simply remand uh this these particular motions back to the trial court without issuing an opinion. Um the court of course also can choose to provide guidance to the trial court. um for its reconsideration of any subsequent motions. Well

Unknown 6:10

let me ask you this on that point. Um because we do on occasion provide guidance in connection with a remand, for example, it's often procedural. or often answering questions that we think are going to come up from the parties so that uh the trial court is not in the dark about it. Um but here Um Mr. White's outrage at the amount of the award is evident from your briefing and I know this uh matter has already been very vigorously litigated, but um I help me understand how the guidance that you're asking for is not effectively an advisory opinion. That would really it it seems like you're inviting us to constrain or direct the discretion of the trial court somehow.

Michelle Gerhardt 6:55

Well, I I think your honor that um it's important on a motion for attorneys fees that it be framed in the context of the enabling statute. And here the attorneys fees were awarded in the context of the anti-slab statute. And uh this court actually pointed out in the underlying opinion The purpose of the statut, which is to provide. A procedural remedy to dispose of lawsuits that were brought to chill the valid exercise of constitutional rights under the First Amendment.