Shelly Albaum
Sep 12, 2019
The lawyers were up past midnight again submitting their trial plans. You can read them here:
Jury Verdict Forms
Jury Instructions
ChromaDex's Proposed Jury Instructions
[Elysium's Proposed Jury Instructions aren't yet filed as of this writing]
Joint Witness Lists
If you read all this stuff, you'll see that the entire trial has been planned out -- how the jury will be instructed, who will testify, how long it will take, what exhibits will be shown, who will be testifying live and who will only have their depositions read or replayed.
Except for two things.
First, the parties don't actually agree on what the jury verdict forms should be or how the jury should be instructed -- and you'll see the proposed verdict forms, especially, are wildly divergent.
Here is an example -- see how differently the parties would have the jurors think through a breach of contract claim:
ChromaDex proposes to ask, Was there a breach, and what were the damages?
Elysium, by contrast, steps through in turn, Was there a Contract, Was performance excused, Was there an MFN provision, Was it violated, Was any violation harmful, etc.
The Court will have to decide which of these versions is the best to use, balancing risk of confusion and risk of leading the jury. Both sides are trying to walk the jury through their own vision of how the law and evidence apply, and once the jurors head into deliberations that's all the guidance they have. So how the jury is instructed is extremely consequential.
Second, if the Court grants some of the summary judgment and exclusion motions, that would scramble the plans dramatically, by making some of the instructions irrelevant or the evidence improper.
I imagine the jury instructions might not be finalized until after evidence is presented.