Last week I attended IAAPA Expo 2011 in beautiful (and much warmer than Connecticut) Orlando, Florida. I think all who attended can agree that it was a great time and a fantastic networking opportunity. To all of you who I met there, I hope to see you soon. To all of you who I didn't, I hope to meet you soon.
While at IAAPA, I had the opportunity to speak with several of my colleagues, both in and out of any one of the kazillion educational sessions IAAPA offers, and specifically to speak with some of them about last summer's decision from the California federal court in
Wallace v. Busch Entertainment.
I've previously written about this case to express my belief that it could contain a subtle signal that at least one federal judge in California does not believe that the Nalwa decision is long for this world. (I've also written on the
Nalwa decision previously -
you can find that here). I continue to believe that the absence of any mention of the
Nalwa ruling in
Wallace may speak volumes about its perceived persuasiveness. However a colleague of mine, who practices in California, was not as convinced that there was any message or implication in the
Wallace ruling. According to my colleague, the absence of
Nalwa in the
Wallace decision is not attributable to the federal court's potential belief that
Nalwa is a poor decision, but is simply a product of a California appellate rule that prohibits any court from citing the
Nalwa decision once the California Supreme Court has agreed to review the decision. Well - not being versed in California appellate rules (remember folks, I practice in Connecticut and the two states are PRETTY different), this stopped me in my tracks ... momentarily. After all, if the
Wallace court didn't cite to
Nalwa because it wasn't allowed to - where does that leave my entire premise. Well, I'm happy to report that my premise is safe and sound, and in fact, even assuming my colleague is correct about this rule, even stronger than it was before I knew about the rule. Keep reading after the jump if you want to know why.