Florida Open Carry Lawsuit Update 9-23-2024

Gun Owners of America, Inc. v. Pearson (2:24-cv-14250)

I am writing this on the night of Sunday, September 22nd. It has been twelve days since my last update, and I suspect I will soon be writing another update once Federal District Court Judge Jose E. Martinez unravels the mess the attorneys for both sides have made.

I’m writing this update now because I stumbled across a YouTube video by the Plaintiffs’ attorney “explaining” why he did what he did in the case. His video shined a light on the pitfalls of hiring an attorney who appears to have no Federal court experience to prosecute a civil rights lawsuit in Federal court.

One clue from his video was when he repeatedly said that the Defendants had 20 days to file their response to the lawsuit. No! In Florida state court, the defendants have 20 days to file their response. In Federal court, they have 21 days.

Now, that might just have been a repeated slip of the tongue were it not for him compounding his mistaken understanding of how the Federal court system works.

In his video, he says, “[W]e are not agreeing to the defaults being set aside. We are just leaving it up to the judge to decide if he wants to set the defaults aside..."

Well, he was the one who filed the motion to vacate the default judgment against the state. How can he say that he does not agree with the default judgment being set aside when he is the one who filed the motion to vacate the default judgment? He also signed a joint motion asking the court to give the State an extension of time to file its response.

One of the other defendants, Sheriff Keith Pearson, filed an unopposed motion to set aside the default judgment against the Sheriff. In Federal court, when you do not oppose a motion, you are agreeing to the motion being granted.

Not to be outdone, the state’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit last week, but he did not sign or date the motion to dismiss!

Even if he had signed and dated the motion, the motion to dismiss reads as if the lawsuit had been filed in a Florida state court instead of a Federal court. The motion drones on and on about the Plaintiffs’ quest for Declaratory relief but makes no argument as to why the Plaintiffs’ quest for purely prospective Injunctive relief should be dismissed.

The Plaintiffs’ attorney went on to say, “[W]e are going to have to wait and see what the judge decides to do now although the court has not made a ruling on either the defendant’s motion to set aside the default the state attorney and the state attorney's office filed a motion to dismiss the complaint for failure to State a claim uh the court has given us till October the 1st to follow our response to that motion and I assure you we will file our response in the appropriate time period once the court has made a ruling on the motions...”

No! The Clerk of the Court gave the Plaintiffs’ attorney until September 30th to file his motion for default judgment. If he does not file it, the default judgment will be dismissed. That is not “leaving it for the judge to decide.” If the Plaintiffs’ attorney does not file his timely motion for default judgment, there will be no default judgment. And the judge will not have to decide anything regarding the default judgment. In fact, the judge will not make a ruling on any of the motions until after the deadline for the Plaintiffs’ attorney to file his motion for a default judgment has passed. If the Plaintiffs’ attorney does not file a motion for default judgment, then the only ruling by the judge will be on the state’s motion to dismiss.

It is possible that the Plaintiffs’ attorney is well versed in Federal procedure, but I don’t know him. All I can go by is what he has filed in this case and what he said in his video. I searched two legal databases and could not find a single Federal lawsuit he has litigated.

I could go on about the mistakes the state’s attorney has made, but there have been too many in such a short period, such as his failure to explain why his failure to file a timely response to the claim was excusable, as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure require. It is true he neglected to file his timely response but the reason he gave was he did not know that one of his minions had agreed with the Plaintiffs’ attorney for an extension of time. That “excuse” actually works against him because he was still required to file a timely response to the lawsuit but failed to do so. Only judges can agree to extend the time mandated by the Federal Rules. The parties to a lawsuit don’t get to make their own rules or schedule.

The Plaintiffs’ attorney has repeatedly fumbled this case. If he fails to file his motion for default judgment by the deadline, he will have thrown away a win. If that happens, then people should ask the Gun Owners of America why it intentionally threw that win away.

In any event, here is a link to the CourtListener docket where you can read the filings for free.

And here is his YouTube video.