Judge John Chupp, the distract state join presiding over the Vic Mignogna lawsuit against Funimation, Monica Rial, and Ron Toye, has ordered the case into mediation.
According to Dallas News, if an agreement isn’t reached between both parties by October 3rd, 2019, Judge Chupp will rule on the outstanding orders on October 4th, 2019.
The latest update on the case was covered by YouTuber HeroHei, who went over the details and explained everything that’s happened up to this point.
According to Anime News Network, Judge Chupp has dismissed most of Mignogna’s case against voice actress Jamie Marchi, as well as claims of tortious interference of existing contracts and business relations against Moica Rial and Ron Toye.
What was the reasoning for this? Well, Chupp asked Mignogna’s lawyer, Ty Beard, for proof that the contracts had been breached due to provable interference from Toye and Rial. He also wanted proof that Mignogna’s finances were impacted from contract terminations related to anime conventions due to interference from the #KickVic group. However, other than Kameha Con, Beard was unable to produce evidence that Toye and Rial directly impacted Mignogna’s contracts with the conventions since there were no written contracts that Mignogna had with the conventions.
There was plenty of evidence that various cons were threatened by the #KickVic groups – what Beard should have done was deposed the convention owners, and then gathered screenshots from fans, etc., where the #KickVic groups pressured the convention organizers into canceling Mignogna’s appearance, and then cross-referenced the people sending the threats with Monica Rial or Jamie Marchi’s followers, while also time-stamping whether the threats came following any kind of conversation(s) or social media posts made by the #KickVic figureheads.
The main problem was that the judge dismissed any claims of conspiracy to interfere with Mignogna’s convention appearances because there was no concrete proof that Rial or Toye had orchestrated the cancellation of his appearances, and no proof that Mignogna’s convention appearance cancellations resulted in a guaranteed loss of revenue.
In any case, we’ll see how this all plays out when October 3rd gets here.
(Thanks for the news tip alex9234)