Canadian Zeek net-winner trial scheduled for April 2016
Interesting times ahead, with Canadian Zeek Rewards net-winners now facing an April 2016 trial.
Together, Catherine Parker, Xiaomei Wang, Beverley Dawn Trca-Kitchen, Bin Xu, Joel Broughton, Feng Guang Wu, Don Fitz-Ritson, Ruth Konig, Buan Jun Zhang, Leon Killam, Guo Hua Liang, Sandra Gavel, Yong Sheng Wang, Devey Dejong, The estate of Bruce Richard Foeller, Brian Fussey, Shao Zhang Huang, James Macelwain, Eugene Veinotte, 0937702B.C. LTD, Michael Gallup, Jia Yu Wang, Ying Liu, Jane Ferguson, Zahid Ali and Mei-Ping Liang made off with $2.91 million of Zeek victim’s funds.
In a filing issued on the 3rd of August, Judge Mullen ordered that an expert report be filed by the Zeek Receiver no later than August 15th, 2015.
The Canadian net-winner defendants named above then have to file a response within 75 days.
If required, another 30 days after that is allocated to the Receiver to file a rebuttal.
Finally after all of that and discovery is out of the way, we get into the good stuff:
The trial is scheduled for the April 11, 2016 term and is expected to take 5 days.
A number of Canadian defendants have had default judgement entered against them, so how a trial against them is going to go I’m not sure. Ditto what happens if they wake up and decide to settle (read: pay back what they stole).
Stay tuned!
Footnote: Our thanks to Don@ASDUpdates for providing a copy of Judge Mullen’s August 3rd “Pretrial Order and Case Management Plan”.
Update 4th March 2016 – As per a March 2nd order by Judge Mullen, the Canadian net-winner trial has been rescheduled for September 6th, 2016.
Update 24th August 2016 – As per an August 15th order, the Canadian net-winner trial has been rescheduled for the February 2017 term.
actually, the canadian defendants have an ‘entry of default’ against them and not a ‘default judgment’.
after being served by reciever bell, the defendants had a particular amount of time to respond to his notice.
once that time has passed, reciever bell got the court clerk to make an ‘entry of default’, against the defendants who did not respond.
however the court has to convert this ‘entry of default’ into a ‘default judgement’.
if there are some defendants who have challenged receiver bells claims, then the court may not enter ‘default judgments’ against other defendants either, until the issue is not resolved by trial.
in the canadian clawback case, ‘entry of default’ has been made against most of the defendants. but there appear to be a few defendants who have responded to bell, with ‘pro se answers’, and i’m guessing the court has to hold a trial to deal with them.
so, the ‘entry of default’ against all the other defendants [who have not responded], will also be held back till the trial is not resolved.
It is actually a type of judgment, a valid one.
“The clerk must enter judgment”.
yes, i saw that, but ignored it because it is not applicable in the zeek case.
the court clerk can enter default judgement in ‘breach of contract’ cases where a fixed sum of money was owed at a particular date.
for all other default judgments [ponzi clawback in this case], the court has to order the default judgment.
generally a plaintiff [in this case receiver bell], rushes to get an ‘entry of default’ against the defendants, because this cuts off the defendant’s ability to file a ‘motion to dismiss’ the suit.
the ‘entry of default’ is made by the court clerk.
in some cases like ‘breach of contract’ a request can be made to the court clerk to enter a ‘default judgment’.
in all other cases the plaintiff has to move the court to get a ‘default judgment’.
the defendant can participate in the court hearing/trial if he wishes. in case the defendant does not participate in the court hearing, it will be a one way trial, where the plaintiff has to convince the judge as to the amount owed to him.
the court will then award a default judgment to the plaintiff against the defendant.
to enforce the judgment the court will write to the defendant to pay the amount owed ‘forthwith’.
if the defendant does not pay ‘forthwith’, then you have to run around getting the order enforced, which a whole different ball game.
Good stuff. Thnks
Can you link to a source for the information in that post / those two posts?
i ran through several sources, but cannot remember all of them.
i do remember ehow, wiki, and some info from here:
saclaw.org/wp-content/uploads/sbs-request-a-default-judgment-by-court.pdf
i have provided a very ‘general’ laymans explanation of the procedure for default judgments.
different states in the US, may have small differences, and i have not included the defendants perspective at all.
for instance the defendant can make a motion to vacate the ‘entry of default’, or later on the ‘default judgment’ too.
The reason why I asked is because “Entry of default” + “Default Judgment” clearly have been available in the clawback litigations (your conclusion in post #3 didn’t seem to be correct).
The reasoning didn’t seem correct either. If it only had been available in certain types of “breach of contract” cases then it wouldn’t have been included in FRCP.
One example = Michael Van Leeuwen:
– – – – – –
July 2 2014
APPLICATION FOR ENTRY OF DEFAULT, Michael Van Leeuwen
– – – – – –
July 3 2014
Entry of Default, Michael Van Leeuwen
– – – – – –
July 9 2014
MOTION FOR DEFAULT JUDGMENT BY CLERK OF COURT, Michael Van Leeuwen
– – – – – –
August 27 2014
ORDER granting Motion for Default Judgment, Michael Van Leeuwen
– – – – – –
So it has clearly been available. That last order was signed by the clerk of the court. Now it will be up to Michael Van Leeuwen to file a “Motion To Set Aside Default Judgment” or similar motions.
you are right.
you are right that in clawback cases the court clerk is empowered to issue a ‘default JUDGMENT’ after the ‘entry of default’.
so, i guess the trial scheduled for april 2016 is for the canadian net winners who filed a ‘pro se answer’.