Berkeley – At a court hearing in the Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday March 11, the New Day Pacifica countersuit was struck in its entirety. The judge’s ruling was procedural in nature. The countersuit filing listed as “plaintiffs” a number of individuals in the Los Angeles area who were not defendants in the initial lawsuit and therefore ineligible to file a countersuit. It’s a rookie mistake and does not speak well to the New Day legal team, but the upshot is that their suit is stricken from the record, along with a “demurrer” or attempt to have the countersuit dismissed by the Pacifica Foundation. At the same hearing, a request from Pacifica for an ex parte proceeding to freeze New Day’s emails to the members was denied. This brings New Day’s attempt to get a legal ruling that the staff and listener votes in the 2021 bylaw referendum be “combined” or the WBAI staff vote thrown out (both scenarios were requested in various legal filings) back to zero. While it may be inevitable that they will re-file without the incorrect plaintiffs, we would take a moment to reflect on the vast waste of money this effort has become and hope that saner minds will prevail. Virtually any use of listener donated funds would be more constructive than this. We estimate the total from the referendum and the associated legal fees from both sides (New Day has been raising funds for their legal costs from Pacifica members) must total more than $400,000 by now, and this is money that would have helped out struggling KPFK-FM in Los Angeles a whole lot. The judge’s ruling is here.