There was a judge, Judge [insurance company name]*, in a county where I practice who was notorious for resolving civil discovery motions by telling counsel to "go outside in the hall and work it out, and if you can't work it out I'll impose sanctions."

Needless to say, if counsel would have been able to work it out, they would not have spent the time and money on preparing a motion in the first place.  But Judge [insurance company name] couldn't let that logic pass from outside the Judge's head into the inside.  The quote above was all the decision one would get.  If you pressed, Judge [insurance company name] would shout and threaten contempt sanctions.

And, of course, this sort of indecision was capitalized upon by defense lawyers representing insurance companies who sought to abuse the discovery system, by withholding discovery that was, in fact, due, and then forcing plaintiffs to beg for what they were entitled to, and in effect bid against themselves.

That's the kind of stupidity and injustice the Minnesota Supreme Court engaged in when they punted on making a decision and, instead, told the Coleman and Franken campaigns to go out in the hall and work it out.  I lost a lot of respect for them when they decided to emulate Judge [insurance company name]'s style of indecisive decidering.