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Law360 (May 7, 2021, 5:18 PM EDT) -- Attorneys and other participants in an upcoming trial to resolve an auto group's challenge to Massachusetts' updated "Right to Repair" law will have to tell the presiding judge whether they've been vaccinated against COVID-19, he said during a hearing Friday.
U.S. District Judge Douglas P. Woodlock told lawyers representing the Alliance for Automotive Innovation and Attorney General Maura Healey, who is defending the recently passed law, that he would grant the alliance's request for an in-person bench trial set to begin in June.
The judge cited a criminal trial he's currently overseeing, the prosecution of the former mayor of Fall River on corruption charges, as proof that live trials can be done safely in the Boston federal courthouse.
But Judge Woodlock said he changed his mind on one requirement for those appearing in person. In the criminal trial, lawyers, jurors and others were not asked whether they had received a COVID-19 vaccine. Though mindful of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, Judge Woodlock said he would be confidentially inquiring about vaccine status this time.
"HIPAA regulations are fairly demanding, obviously, and while a court order trumps HIPAA, I don't want to do that lightly," Judge Woodlock said. "But I do think back to my responsibility of making sure everybody is safe."
He said anybody who is going to be in the courtroom, a group that figures to include lawyers, the parties they represent, and potentially expert witnesses, will have to submit a statement on their vaccination status. Judge Woodlock said the information would go to him and him alone and the data would not be shared or kept.
It's unclear what actions, if any, the court would take depending on a trial participant's vaccine status.
The alliance represents carmakers such as General Motors Co., Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG, among others. The carmakers want to block a ballot question passed last fall that would expand the state's 2012 Right to Repair legislation by giving independent auto body shops access to a vehicle's telematics system, which can relate to navigation, GPS and other data that auto dealers feel is proprietary.
The auto group initially asked for a Zoom trial but said in a filing May 3 that it changed its mind and would prefer that all of the lawyers and parties be in the courtroom, with an option for witnesses to testify remotely if needed. The setup is akin to what Judge Woodlock had in place for the former mayor's jury trial.
"Circumstances have changed greatly with the pandemic and the vaccination rates," alliance attorney Laurence Schoen of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC said during the Zoom hearing Friday. "Certainly when I raised the idea of the Zoom trial at the time I didn't think we would be in the position we are in now."
Healey's office pushed for a fully virtual trial, saying the hybrid model would add unnecessary complexity to the case and increase the risk of COVID-19 transmission. But Judge Woodlock said at the start of the hearing that they pulled off the criminal jury trial and that is far more complicated than the alliance's proposal.
Social distancing guidelines limit the number of people inside the cavernous, high-ceilinged 2,600 square foot courtrooms to just 26. More than half of the slots in the former Fall River mayor's trial were taken by jurors. A bench trial will allow for more people in the room and Judge Woodlock asked both sides to think about who they would like to have present, warning them that they should have a "second chair de jour" and not tack attorneys onto their roster like the "children of Lake Wobegon."
The public will be able to watch the trial via Zoom, which has been the case in Judge Woodlock's ongoing criminal trial against former Mayor Jasiel Correia. That trial, which could go to the jury as soon as Monday, has had more than 500 people log onto the stream at times and provided some "war stories" the judge shared with attorneys in the car suit Friday.
Some viewers turned their video back on even if it was turned off by a court employee, including one of Correia's former political opponents who wanted to "offer some observations" about the city government's conduct, Judge Woodlock said.
"For those of you on the West Coast, politics in Fall River is a vigorous business," the judge said, adding that he had the person's account banned from watching the trial as if he had been unruly in the courtroom.
Another person Judge Woodlock said he had banned from the Correia trial is a man who, while watching at home, "thought that it was altogether appropriate to watch the trial unclothed, and periodically display himself."
He pointed out that the displays were "fortunately" only from the chest up.
"That's something I would not ordinarily permit in the courtroom," Judge Woodlock said dryly. "While I am not strict about how people dress, they should dress."
The Alliance for Automotive Innovation is represented by John Nadolenco, Andrew J. Pincus, Archis A. Parasharami, Eric A. White and Erika Z. Jones of Mayer Brown LLP, Elissa A. Flynn-Poppey, Laurence A. Schoen and Andrew Nathanson of Mintz Levin Cohn Ferris Glovsky and Popeo PC and its own Charles H. Haake.
Healey is represented by Eric A. Haskell, Robert E. Toone Jr. and Jennifer E. Greaney of the Massachusetts Office of the Attorney General.
The case is Alliance for Automotive Innovation v. Healey, case number 1:20-cv-12090, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
--Editing by Michael Watanabe.
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