John Schnatter's books-and-records suit is headed for trial, after a Delaware judge on Thursday blocked Papa John's motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that it was based on the same allegations underpinning a separate lawsuit against the company's directors.

Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor Andre G. Bouchard said it was “reasonably conceivable” that the two cases centered on different issues, and Papa John's had not carried its heavy burden of proving that Schnatter's demand for documents related to his resignation from the pizza chain was improper under Delaware law.

The ruling, delivered from the bench of Bouchard's Wilmington courtroom, followed an hour of arguments, and clears the way for a one-day trial, set for Oct. 1. The parties were set to meet next week ahead of the scheduled trial date.

Schnatter, who attended the hearing with his wife, declined to comment after the hearing.

Attorneys for Schnatter will still have to argue next month that his demand for documents was consistent with his duty to investigate potential mismanagement at the company and inform himself as a director of the company he founded in 1984.

Papa John's and its Richards, Layton & Finger attorneys argued that the demand centered on the same allegations he raised in a separate derivative case in August, barring him from litigating both suits at the same time. The company instead pushed for a “pause” or dismissal without prejudice, while the plenary case proceeds.

“He doesn't need the documents he's seeking to file a lawsuit,” Richards Layton partner Blake Rohrbacher argued in court. “He's already filed a lawsuit.”

“This is John Schnatter seeking documents about John Schnatter.”

Peter Ladig, a Bayard PA director who represents Schnatter, differentiated between the two cases, saying the books-and-records suit seeks information leading up to the board's decision to form a special committee, which later recommended that Schnatter be terminated for using a racial slur on a diversity training call earlier in the summer. The derivative suit, he said, alleged breaches by Papa John's board after the directors adopted the committee's recommendations on July 15.

During the hearing, Bouchard seemed skeptical of Papa John's request to force Schnatter to obtain the documents in discovery, saying that it could be a “long time” before the information is produced in the derivative action. In Delaware, he said, directors are allowed wide access to corporate materials that aid them in performing their corporate duties.

In his ruling, Bouchard said that, while there may be “some overlap” in the two suits, the differences were “borne out on the face” of the filings in Schnatter's books-and-records case.

“This may not be 100 percent the case, but it appears to be true,” he said.

Schnatter filed his derivative case Aug. 1, accusing the directors and CEO Steve Ritchie of “serious and ongoing wrongdoing” since the filing of the books-and-records case July 26. In a redacted complaint, Schnatter said the board had plotted to force him out of the company, and he accused Ritchie of making up lies about Schnatter in order to keep his own job.

The complaint also raised vague allegations of “sexual harassment or other misconduct” by members of Ritchie's senior leadership team. In the filing, Schnatter said he reported the complaints in a letter to the company's human resources department, but women at the company were still being exposed to acts of intimidation and retaliation.

On Wednesday, Ladig said he planned to amend the derivative complaint to remove a count against Ritchie, but he also acknowledged that some of the allegations in the letter involved at least one member of the special committee that recommended Schnatter's termination to the board.

Ladig declined to comment on the harassment allegations after Thursday's hearing.

Schnatter, who owns a 30 percent stake in Papa John's, also resigned as Papa John's CEO last December in the wake of controversial comments he made regarding a widely publicized dispute over players in the National Football League refusing to stand for the national anthem.

Schnatter's resignation as chairman in July came on the heels of a Forbes article that claimed he had used a racial slur during a diversity media training exercise. He has apologized and admitted to making the remark, though he said it was taken out of context.

Schnatter has hired high-powered trial lawyer Patricia Glaser to represent him in both cases. Glaser, a partner and litigation chair with Glaser Weil Fink Howard Avchen & Shapiro in Los Angeles, recently represented Harvey Weinstein in negotiations with The Weinstein Co., after the studio terminated the disgraced movie producer amid scores of sexual misconduct allegations. She did not appear in court on Thursday.

Bouchard's ruling also required Papa John's to produce certain documents related to its assertion that Schnatter's books-and-records case was brought for an improper purpose, but the judge blocked Schnatter's request for information related to Papa John's claims of attorney-client privilege, as well as the sources of certain communications he sought to investigate.

The case is captioned Schnatter v. Papa John's.