United States District Court for Southern District of Mississippi to Consider all Motions for Summary Judgment Before Final Judgment

The United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi determined that, notwithstanding that it had determined earlier to dismiss a civil RICO case against Mr. Ables’ client for failure of the plaintiff to prosecute its federal and state claims, the Court will take up all five of Ables’ client’s motions for summary judgment before the Court enters its final judgment in the civil action.   All of Ables’ motions had been on file for a substantial period of time before the Court decided to dismiss for failure to prosecute.  Ables did not assent to a dismissal done on that basis, which, even if ordered done with prejudice, would not have reached the merits of Ables’ motions but would have merely precluded the plaintiff’s refilling of the same claims in the Southern District of Mississippi.  By seeking reconsideration of that Rule 41 dismissal and obtaining a favorable ruling, Ables preserved his client’s opportunity to be exonerated on the actual merits of the claims made against him.  Before they  stopped prosecuting their claims, plaintiff was seeking over $267,000,000 from Ables’ client, a resident of Alabama.