civil lawsuits, alleging, sexual misconduct during
massage sessions.
We know there aren't going to be any trials during football
season, but there's a fight. Now, looming over
an effort to spend five days questioning DeShaun Watson
in some of these 22 cases
in early May and Watson's campus fought back saying Hey
look,
He's in Cleveland. He's got obligations with the Browns.
It's the offseason program
and a judge is going to have to decide
what to do here. Now, the judge is going to be unhappy. I know
from experience when the parties can't work out
Discovery disputes. That's what this is. It's a dispute over
where deposition is going to be taken and disputes come up?
What documents do you want? And you've got an obligation
to try to work it out.
The judge doesn't want to get involved. The judge is not paid
by our, the judge is not paid by case. The judge is paid is
Michael Scott would say by year.
So there's no incentive.
There's no bonus. There's no extra
for getting involved in these disputes that come up from time
to time and it's always incumbent on the parties to
work it out. And this feels like something they should be
able to work out. Look, the guy wants to be involved in
the offseason program.
Can't we just do this in June?
After the
OTAs? End? Can't we just do this when he's otherwise not
working. He's working in May.
Can't we work this out and do it at a time?
I'm when he's available. I'd like to think the parties can
cooperate if they're cooperating on this idea that
the cases aren't going to go to
trial during football season.
Why can't they cooperate on when the guys going to be
questioned under oath, in Texas? Do it, when the Browns
aren't in session? Yeah, I agree. I mean, I don't think
it's that hard to figure out and even in like, may there's
a lot of times where you got like a Friday Saturday, and Sunday
off, you know, as an NFL football player. You've done
your work Monday, through Thursday and you might have
a long way so they can find five days. Like, get out of here.
The thing I Mike
is,
you know, if I'm DeShaun Watson and all that. Do you want to
even do a deposition before the season?
You know what I would be scared about and what I would think
about it, they're thinking about it a little bit. It's all
right. I'll great. We do we do in five hours or five days of
testimony, you know, we're just getting
people used to Cleveland and DeShaun Watson being there.
And then okay, we're going to go to the five days of
testimony and what so Busby can release it and make things more
confusing. And In Cleveland, and they can release some of
the answers and all that to where it makes it harder for
the Browns and DeShaun
Watson to go, you know, smooth things over there and Cleveland
and that's what I'd be worried about a little if I'm Watson's
camp,
but here's the problem. Yeah,
the deposition must be done. Well, in advance of trial,
the deposition is the opportunity for the lawyer to ask a bunch
of questions and basically to operate without a net. You
don't want to get in front of a jury gives you a net. So when
you do go to the
jury, you're not operating.
That in that you've talked to the guy, you know, how they say
a good lawyer knows the answer to every question before it's
asked. Yeah, you know the answer to every question you're
going to ask a
trial because you've already asked all the possible
questions at that position where you don't worry about how
a jury is going to react. If you push too far, or if it
comes out like a stupid question, you're fishing
around, you're trying different things. You're just trying to
drill down on the facts,
you need to be able to do that. Well, in advance of trial,
so if the cases are going to go to trial next year,
got to do the depositions now and he's already done some of
them. Yeah. He's already done some. Yeah. When your Sued by
22 people. You know what that means? Yeah, you get question
22 times. Yeah,
in depositions. So this is all the more reason
that before
the trade was accomplished before the 230 million dollar
fully guaranteed contract was signed, you settle, these
cases. You don't want this Cloud hanging over the Browns.
Now, your Browns fan. You got to worry. He's going to miss
a full week of the offseason program. Yeah.
Yeah, just stuff. You don't want to worry about and stuff
that Watson shouldn't put the And base in a position where
they have to worry about, should have settled the cases
and all the more reason to settle them
ASAP. If you're Busby,
I know. I mean again, I don't know how much time do you
usually need, you know, between
deposition testimony and all that between you go to trial.
I mean, with a month do or no, you need more need. More than
that. Okay. All right, because you may need to do some
follow-up. Baseball with the guy said you want, you want
a year 9
months to a year. Okay. All right. All right, cool. That's
good to know. All right. So like, did you can you can you
if you think you're just Sean? And Watson right now, with,
with the, the life scenario you're involved in.
Can you say, okay, I'll do the testimonies but you can't
release any of the footage right now or at this point, you
think don't even bother me, whatever go with that. I mean,
or is that make no sense for him is? There's no protective
order in
place for the cases.
And why would Busby agree to that? This part of his leverage
to create settlement value? What they need to do
get everybody in a room, find a retired judge that Tony Busby
respects find somebody that Tony
We'll listen to, there's always somebody
that that someone else will listen to find that person
because
you got to be able to get through to Watson, but you also
got to be able to get through the Busby Busby's, got a tiger
by the tail. And he is yanking,
he knows, he's got settlement value.
He knows that he can get more money for his clients because
there is an urgency to resolve these cases
and you need to get him to set that aside and realize if you
push it too far, you're going to go to trial with some Aces
that maybe aren't that strong or you're not have a hard time
getting a positive outcome for your clients,
the sooner they get everybody together. Yeah, do this. And if
I'm the judge when they bring this stupid dispute over, when
he's going to testify into my courtroom, I'm saying here's
what we're going to do,
June 20th.
Here's the person, who's doing it. I've done my research. I've
done my homework. I think I know who the right person is.
Here's the person who's presiding over a mass
mediation. It will happen that day. And you hope that, that
that's the occasion where everybody settles the case
because that definitely needs to