Court filing
Exhibit Butler Cash email exchange — Agent Fee Litigation (Dkt. 52.6)
Summary
Exhibit 6 is an email exchange between counsel in Sport & Wheat's lawsuit against Synovus, under a subject line about documents used during a deposition, dated June 19, 2020 and June 20, 2020. In the June 19 email, plaintiff's counsel Bill Cash III of Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor, P.A. writes that the plaintiff will not press to complete the corporate 30b6 deposition the following week, contends that Synovus's counsel walked out without meeting the Rule 30(d) standard, and says the deposition remains open. He says the plaintiff will produce its documents, including text messages, by its discovery deadline. In the June 20 reply, Synovus's counsel Jim Butler disputes those statements, states that the suit concerns $1633, and says Synovus intends to file a motion for protective order to terminate the deposition unless the plaintiff stipulates.
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Full text
EXHIBIT 6
From: Jim Butler
Sent: Saturday, June 20, 2020 10:05 AM
To: 'Bill Cash'; Ramsey Prather; pbates@philipbates.net; Nathanson,
Paul J.; 'Haynes, Antonio M.'; Kim McCallister
Cc: Cheryl L. Haas (chaas@mcguirewoods.com); Sara Anne Ford;
'jwirt@wirtlawfirm.com'
Subject: RE: Synovus adv. Sport & Wheat: Documents Used During
Deposition
Mr. Cash:
We’ve had multiple conferences with you about this subject, most recently during
the deposition itself. It is our view that the statements in your email are untrue, but
the deposition transcript will speak to that.
Your lawsuit has already cost Synovus a great deal of lost time, trouble, and
expense - all for $1633, which S&W and its lawyers never even sought from
Synovus before rushing to file the lawsuit.
We intend to file a motion for protective order seeking an Order that the 30b6
deposition is terminated. That MPO will put the facts of the last month before the
Court. If you wish stipulate that the 30b6 deposition is terminated, then perhaps
there would be no grounds for such a motion or order. Otherwise we will proceed
with filing the MPO.
Beyond the foregoing we decline to engage with you further about this subject ‐
the facts of the past month are clear.
Jim Butler
From: Bill Cash <bcash@levinlaw.com>
Sent: Friday, June 19, 2020 4:19 PM
To: Ramsey Prather; pbates@philipbates.net; Jim Butler; Nathanson, Paul J.;
'Haynes, Antonio M.'; Kim McCallister
Cc: Cheryl L. Haas (chaas@mcguirewoods.com); Sara Anne Ford; Matt Schultz;
Virginia Buchanan; 'jwirt@wirtlawfirm.com'; 'Pam Wirt'
Subject: RE: Synovus adv. Sport & Wheat: Documents Used During Deposition
Dear Synovus colleagues,
On further reflection, we have decided not to press to complete the 30(b)(6)
deposition next week. We intend to pick up the matter at a later date—after
Synovus makes a full and fair production of interrogatory responses,
documents, and RFAs—and we will consider if we need more deposition time
then. If we do, we’ll work it out with you, and if we can’t, we’ll file a motion to
compel and we’ll put the facts of yesterday before the court.
To be very clear, we do not consider this deposition concluded; it stands open
and in our eyes the witness remains in the chair. You violated the Rules by
walking out. We do not believe you met the standard to terminate a
deposition under Rule 30(d), which requires bad faith or harassing or
annoying conduct. “Bad faith” means the deposition was taken for some
purpose other than advancing the case, like abusing the power to take
depositions in order to cause embarrassment.
Nothing close to that happened. The witness did not complain about that; no
lawyer complained about that. Your real objection was that counsel wanted to
see some text messages so counsel could prep the witness and put documents
in “context” before he answered. Let me underscore that these texts were
Bank documents, in the full custody and control of the Bank, as equally
available to you and your client as they were to mine, and the Bank has had
them for months. Moreover, the deadline for us to produce our copies of these
documents in response to your discovery requests hasn’t run yet, and you
agreed to the production of this witness under these circumstances anyway.
This was a date you selected.
But we will take your objection about documents away from you. We will
make production of the full set of documents that we have, including all of the
texts, on our deadline under the Rules. We know you will follow the Rules and
do the same—including making an exhaustive search through the company’s
files and those of its employees for relevant documents, which will include all
relevant communications between Synovus and Sport & Wheat. After you
have done that, we will consider whether we have further questions for this
witness.
On a personal note, I want to say that nobody likes scorched-earth tactics;
they are exhausting, and they violate the liberal spirit of the Rules. We are
willing to push the reset button with your team if you want to start over. If
not, I regret that we will have to do things the hard way, but the record’s going
to show that we have offered over and over to try to work things out by phone
and e-mail without recourse to the judge. To that end, if you want to pick up
the phone and call, I am happy to discuss further.
Bill Cash III
Shareholder
Levin, Papantonio, Thomas, Mitchell, Rafferty & Proctor, P.A.
316 South Baylen Street, Suite 600, Pensacola, Florida 32502
Phone: 850‐435‐7059
www.levinlaw.com
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- gov.uscourts.flnd.190491.52.6.pdf
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