Cypress Holdings, III, L.P. v. Sport-BLX, Inc.
- Lorna Schofield
- 1:22-cv-01243
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Cypress Holdings v. Sport-BLX, Judge Schofield granted defendants’ application to schedule disqualification motions and stay motion-to-dismiss briefing.
Cypress Holdings, III, L.P., the Sport-BLX Defendants, GlassBridge, and the lawyers involved in the proposed disqualification motions. The order also paused briefing on the defendants’ proposed motions to dismiss.
What happened
In Cypress Holdings, III, L.P. v. Sport-BLX, Inc., certain defendants asked to join GlassBridge’s planned request to disqualify the law firm representing Cypress. They argued that the firm had previously represented or advised defendants and had promised that one of its lawyers would stop acting against them.
The defendants also asked the court to pause the schedule for the planned motions to dismiss until the disqualification issue was decided. The request was made with the parties’ consent as to pausing the dismissal briefing.
Judge Lorna G. Schofield granted the application. She ordered the Sport-BLX Defendants and GlassBridge to file disqualification motions, set deadlines for Cypress’s opposition and defendants’ replies, and stayed the briefing schedule for defendants’ proposed motions to dismiss until further court order.
The detailed version
- Cypress Holdings, III, L.P. v. Sport-BLX, Inc. · No. 1:22-cv-01243
- Lorna Schofield
- May 16, 2022
Background
Counsel for Sport-BLX, George Hall, and Joseph DePerio asked to join GlassBridge’s planned motion to disqualify Fox Rothschild, the firm representing Cypress. The letter argued that Fox Rothschild had previously provided substantial services to GlassBridge while GlassBridge was a significant owner of Sport-BLX, and that the firm had been involved in issues concerning claims later asserted by Cypress. It also argued that Fox Rothschild had repeatedly represented that Marc Gross was no longer representing Michael Salerno in the matter, but that Gross allegedly continued providing advice adverse to the defendants.
The letter further argued that the alleged conflict extended beyond GlassBridge to the other defendants. The defendants asked the court to decide the disqualification issue before addressing defendants’ proposed motions to dismiss. They requested that the briefing schedule for those motions be stayed, and stated that all parties consented to the requested stay.
Court’s Action
The court marked the application “GRANTED.” The Sport-BLX Defendants and GlassBridge were each ordered to file a motion for disqualification by May 31, 2022, with memoranda of law of no more than 10 pages. Cypress was ordered to file one opposition memorandum of no more than 20 pages by June 21, 2022. Defendants were allowed replies of no more than five pages each by June 28, 2022. The briefing schedule for defendants’ proposed motions to dismiss was stayed until further order of the court.
This order set the schedule for the disqualification motions and paused the dismissal briefing; the quoted order does not itself decide whether Fox Rothschild must be disqualified or whether defendants’ motions to dismiss should be granted.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.