This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2007, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Boss Industries Inc. v. Yamaha Motor Corporation USA got so heated that in January, U.S. District Judge Dale Kimball ordered lawyers to cool their gamesmanship and bickering.
The warning allegedly went unheeded by one attorney representing Yamaha in the patent infringement case. On Feb. 28, Kimball accused her of submitting backdated documents at least twice to make it appear they had been filed on time.
"This deceitful conduct will not be tolerated," Kimball, who hears cases in Salt Lake City, wrote. "The conduct is particularly egregious when counsel has been previously notified that the court is liberal in granting extensions of time [for filing deadlines] when additional time is needed."
The judge ordered the clerk of the court to correct the filing date on two documents and said any subsequent papers filed with the wrong date would be thrown out.
Two days later, attorney Angela Stander resigned from Snell & Wilmer, which represents Yamaha. Stander, who was admitted to practice law in January 2003, could not be reached for comment Monday.
Snell & Wilmer, one of the biggest law firms in the West, has launched an investigation into exactly what happened and plans to report its findings to Kimball this week. In addition, the firm is apologizing.
According to Kimball's order, the "date filed" stamp on documents did not correspond with the date they actually were placed in a drop box outside the federal courthouse in downtown Salt Lake City. The judge wrote that he hoped it was an isolated incident.
But then it happened again, Kimball said.
"Specifically, it appears that Yamaha's counsel or counsel's agent has been, on occasion, date-stamping the first page of the document to be filed (or the envelope in which the document is placed)," using the time stamp near the outdoors drop box, he said. "The document, however, is not actually placed in the drop box at the time."
Kimball says the deception was caught by clerks who noticed the documents were not in the box the day after they purportedly were filed, but showed up a day or two later.