Coach Flip Naumburg's Journal

Friday, June 3, 2005

EVERYBODY’S FIGHTIN’ ABOUT A SPOONFULL (Cream)

The other day I spent most of the day in a legal deposition. There is a lawsuit going on between lacrosse industry competitors Warrior and STX. I have done this sort of thing before. Last time I testified it was a year and a half ago when it was Warrior vs. de beer (Gait), and I was sitting across the table from the great Paul Gait on that one.

Obviously there is much that I cannot say about all of this, but I have to write something.

THE HOBBYIST

Now that I have gone through this lacrosse deposition thing twice it occurred to me that it’s almost like having a hobby. Fighting over whom was the Mother of an Invention is to me a most interesting part of judicial practice. The process of patent punching and counter punching in the lacrosse ring both fascinates and amuses me. It is mentally challenging and it can be nerve stimulating to be deposed. Make no mistake, however, I would not be interested in giving depositions for a living. This time there were two attorneys, a stenographer, and yours truly present for the proceedings.

LIL OLD ME?

The squabbling parties were kind enough to come all the way to Denver from Virginia and Michigan for a rendezvous with me at the Airport Marriott. We sat together and did the depositioning in a conference room there.

FUNNY STRANGE OR FUNNY HAH HAH?

The funny part about all this battling is that it happens to be part of a small lacrosse world war going on over something I basically drew on a piece of legal paper (not even a whole legal pad) in the mid 1970’s. I had it folded up and carried it with me for years. I thought about it for years, too, developing a three dimensional vision in my mind from the "stick drawing" in my pocket. I had already built a wooden chair in the form of a lacrosse stick by 1976. Stringing that giant pocket for people to sit in was about the most fun I had ever had. I digress.

I was fortunate enough later on to get an opportunity to actually build my little lacrosse stick idea and develop it into reality in the early 90’s with Warrior Lacrosse. They (Warrior) were basically still in diapers at the time. I am and forever will be grateful that they "found" and came to me in Vail back in 1993.

People have been fighting about this particular thing for almost 12 years now. Who knew?

WHO’S SIDE ARE YOU ON ANYWAY?

I made a deal and I signed a contract with Warrior many years ago. All documents concerning the patent that is in question have David Morrow’s (Warrior) name on them as well as mine. What that basically means financially is that I sold the patent to him and them.

Several weeks ago the attorney for Warrior called me and asked if I would do another deposition for a new trial and I agreed. He called me later on to confirm that "He would represent me again", where it would take place, and would that be okay and all that. I was eager to "help", but the fact that he said he was going to "represent me" sort of set me off. It sounded like he thought he was doing something for me, or at least it did to me.

I have nothing to gain financially from all of this. I have no complaints either. I made a deal with Warrior, and I’m still happy with it 12 years later. All I ever had was an idea and a dream. I didn’t reinvent the game.

I took offense that the lawyer for Warrior would portray me as some kind of independent witness that he would be there to help out or whatever. I was not the only "deposer" (sorry) for that last case to be sure, but the check that came down from that when the dust had all settled into a pre-trial settlement was for $1.2 million. It was a check that was made out to Warrior, and none of that had trickled down to me as far as I could see.

On both deposition occasions I was asked hundreds of questions by the "other" counsel and none, that would be not even one, by Warrior’s. There must be some reason for that. I don’t mind doing this for nothing, but you can’t also say that I’m nothing. Of course I made my feelings quite clear and he appreciated them, and that plus 79 cents will buy me a cup of coffee at JJ’s.

After all and by the way, the Warrior legal counsel had brought me a check this time from his firm for what I did the last time. It was for $85. I guess that is the witness fee I am entitled to without any sort of added fleecing.

TOO FUNNY

During the deposition I am constantly given and shown items or documents that are "exhibits". Each one of these exhibits has its own number assigned to it.

They showed me a rendering that I had drawn on a sheet of artists’ paper torn from its ringed binder 12 years ago. I chuckled, or maybe the better word is shuddered, almost embarrassed by my lack of drawing skill. "Do you recognize this?" I say, "Yes". This is important. I had spent the night before reading everything said at the last deposition, and the thing that stuck out most was that I had said, "Uh huh" about a thousand times, at which time the attorney would always say, "You have to say yes". I can see why. Uh huh probably reads a lot like uh uh, and that could be confusing.

If you want to see how big of a jerk you really are, try reading a transcript of yourself sometime.

So, I recognized the drawing because I did it. Then he handed me a large document (patent language) complete with line numbers, column numbers, and claim numbers all put there just to get you to the right place on the verbage "map". Then he proceeds to ask me questions that relate my lame ass drawing to this huge body of thousands of more or less perfectly chosen words. I’m sorry, but I just find that amusing or somehow ironic.

The whole design claim process is eventually put in the hands of people (lawyers) that know very little more about the game than the words used technically in defining the lacrosse equipment that everyone is fighting about. That seems a little weird to me as well.

WHAT IT IS

What really happens in this deposition thing is that the "other guys" come out here, and their greatest hope would be that I am and proceed to look the part of an idiot all through the dispo, er deposition. That would help "them" the most. My theory, and no one told me this, is that the less I look mentally inefficient the quicker it will all be over. I can only begin to describe what kind of motivation that is for someone like me.

I am not the biggest sit-in-meetings-all-day kind of guy, but I admit that in a very strange way I enjoyed both of these experiences.

BY GEORGE I THINK I’VE GOT IT

I went down to Denver to meet with Counsel the night before the deposition. We talked about and went over a bunch of things. At one point I became extremely uncomfortable with what he was saying, and it was probably because I didn’t really understand exactly what he was talking about, but at any rate I went immediately into a detailed description of the recent saga with my CSU lacrosse team. He understands what we do. He is a Michigan graduate. Apparently they (MDIA member Michigan) are on the radio there in Ann Arbor/Detroit from time to time. Anyway, I basically told him that all I could do was give honest answers to questions that I understood. He said that was all he wanted too.

I am way too truthful about the way I see things. Many will attest to that fact with little gray area. For the most part I am really bad at pretending I did, said, or thought things that I did not.

There is a reason my grandfather and my uncle both were given the name George Washington Naumburg. I went on to name my own last son George, although adding Washington in there as the middle name was never a possibility, but that’s a whole other story. Anyway, I just got it, it is the "I cannot tell a lie", and that whole cherry tree thing. About some things perhaps I am ultimately perhaps honest to a fault, beyond George, or at least by George.

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