Free Declaration in Support - District Court of California - California

Case 3:07-cv-04946-JSW

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Filed 12/04/2007

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CHRISTOPHER COOKE, CA Bar #142342 STEPHEN S. WU, CA Bar # 205091 COOKE KOBRICK & WU LLP 177 Bovet Road, Suite 600 San Mateo, CA 94402 Email: [email protected] [email protected] Tel: (650) 638-2370 Fax: (650) 341-1395 Attorneys for Plaintiffs

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO DIVISION MEI-FANG LISA ZHANG, BAY AREA AFFORDABLE HOUSING, LLC, XUEHUAN GAO, YANG-CHUN ZHANG, CAROL JIAN DENG, and HAO LIANG, ) ) ) ) ) ) ) Plaintiffs, ) ) vs. ) ) WEI-MAN RAYMOND TSE, RUN PING ) ) ZHOU a.k.a. FLORA ZHOU, THERESA WONG, JAMES YU, BILL SHU WAI MA, ) ) MOLLY LAU, VICTOR SO, JIAN XIAO, ) CHRIST INVESTMENT SERVICE INC., CIS ) SERVICE, INC., PACIFIC BEST GROUP ) ) LTD. a.k.a. PACIFIC BEST COMPANY LTD., and SOUTH CHINA INVESTMENT ) ) INC., ) Defendants. ) Case No.: C-07-04946 JSW (Related to C-05-02641 JSW) DECLARATION OF CHRISTOPHER COOKE IN RESPONSE TO ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE RE COMPLIANCE WITH ORDER DATED NOVEMBER 7, 2007

I, Christopher Cooke, declare: 1. I am one of the attorneys for Plaintiffs in this action. I make this declaration in

response to the Court's Order to Plaintiffs to Show Cause re Compliance with Order Dated November 7, 2007.

-1COOKE DEC. IN RESPONSE TO ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE/ Case No.: C-07-04946 JSW

Case 3:07-cv-04946-JSW

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2.

On November 7, 2007, the Court issued an order (the "November 7 Order") in

which the Court ordered the parties to show cause why this action should not be stayed. The November 7 Order states that the "parties' responses to this Order to Show Cause shall be due on or before December 6, 2007." 3. When the November 7 Order was issued, I did not read it. Rather, I saw the title

that is reflected in the notice from the Court's e-filing system and my partner, Steve Wu, described its contents to me. Therefore, I was unaware of the provision in the November 7 Order requiring plaintiffs to serve defendants with a copy of it by November 15. We were not trying to take advantage of the defendants by delaying service of the November 7 Order on them, nor did we delay service for some tactical reason, we simply made a mistake. 4. On November 28, 2007, I asked my partner Steve Wu about our response to the

Court's November 7 Order, so that we could begin preparing our response to the substantive issues raised by the November 7 Order. He opened the November 7 Order, read its contents and told me that we were supposed to have served November 7 Order on the defendants by November 15. We decided to immediately serve the November 7 Order on defendants, and to file a proof of service with the Court disclosing our late service, which he did that day. 5. On November 29, 2007, the Court ordered Plaintiffs to explain the late service of

the November 7 Order, and re-scheduled the hearing on the issues raised by the November 7 order to December 21. I immediately gave a copy of the Court's November 29 Order to the process servers we have hired to serve the remaining unserved defendants in this case with instructions to include it in the other filings they are attempting to serve on those defendants. Also, on Friday, November 30, I served the defendants with a copy of the November 29 Order by mailing it to them at the addresses at which they were served with the Summons and Complaint. 6. To prevent any repeat of the mistake that we made with the Court's November 7

Order, Mr. Wu and I, from now on, will both review every order issued by the Court as soon as it is issued, and decide among ourselves who is assuming responsibility for responding to it. I apologize to the Court for any inconvenience our mistake may have caused the Court and the other parties and I will do my best to ensure that no such mistakes happen again.

-2COOKE DEC. IN RESPONSE TO ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE/ Case No.: C-07-04946 JSW

Case 3:07-cv-04946-JSW

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I declare under penalty of perjury under the laws of the United States of America that the foregoing is true and correct. Executed on December 4, 2007.

/s/ CHRISTOPHER COOKE

-3COOKE DEC. IN RESPONSE TO ORDER TO SHOW CAUSE/ Case No.: C-07-04946 JSW