Free Joint Status Report - District Court of Federal Claims - federal

Case 1:05-cv-00897-FMA

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Filed 12/01/2005

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IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF FEDERAL CLAIMS FRANKLIN II LIMITED PARTNERSHIP ) ) Plaintiff, ) ) v. ) ) THE UNITED STATES, ) ) Defendant. )

No. 05-897 C (Judge Francis M. Allegra)

JOINT STATUS REPORT Pursuant to the Court's Order of October 4, 2005, the parties respectfully submit this Joint Status Report to apprise the Court of the status of their ongoing efforts to resolve certain closelyrelated cases through the Court's Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") pilot program. This case is one of approximately 160 suits filed with the Court since August 6, 2004 that have either been referred to the Court's ADR program or stayed pending the ADR proceedings. The parties continue to make good progress in their efforts pursuant to the ADR process. Since the filing of the parties' last Joint Status Report, counsel for the parties have continued to work to resolve their remaining disagreements regarding the proper calculation of damages. The parties exchanged further sets of damages analyses on November 7, 2005 and November 8, 2005, and have continued to consult with their experts in connection with the preparation of these analyses. In addition, the parties have held numerous conferences among counsel, including extensive discussions that were held on November 8, 2005 and November 9, 2005. Most recently, plaintiffs forwarded to defendant an additional set of damages analyses on December 1, 2005. Through these discussions, the parties believe that they have substantially resolved their prior disagreement regarding the apparent discrepancies between their respective damages models. In addition, the parties have succeeded in further narrowing the gap between their respective positions. The parties have also discussed at length certain property-specific issues that

Case 1:05-cv-00897-FMA

Document 8

Filed 12/01/2005

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may effect the calculation of damages for many of the remaining properties at issue. In addition, the parties participated in status conferences with Judge Horn (the ADR judge) on October 17, 2005 and again on November 11, 2005. The parties will be filing an additional Joint Status Report with Judge Horn on December 19, 2005. Finally, the parties are scheduled to hold an in-person conference before Judge Horn on January 18, 2006. The parties hope that their current efforts will produce a methodology that can be applied to the remaining cases that have been designated for ADR, and to the remaining related cases that have been stayed. In sum, the parties have been pleased with the ADR process to date and desire to continue with those efforts.

Respectfully submitted, PETER D. KEISLER Assistant Attorney General s/ David M. Cohen DAVID M. COHEN Director s/ Shalom Brilliant SHALOM BRILLIANT Senior Trial Counsel Commercial Litigation Branch Civil Division Department of Justice 1100 L Street, N.W. Attn: Classification Unit Room 8012 Washington, D.C. 20530 Tele: (202) 305-7561 Fax: (202) 305-7643 Attorneys for Defendant

s/ Jeff H. Eckland JEFF H. ECKLAND Mark J. Blando, Of Counsel Eckland & Blando LLP 500 Lumber Exchange 10 South Fifth Street Minneapolis, MN 55402 Tele: (612) 236-0160 Fax: (612) 236-0179 Attorneys for Plaintiffs

Filed Electronically with the Consent of the Attorney for Plaintiff Dated: December 1, 2005

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