OAKLAND — A federal judge had pointed questions for lawyers at Covington & Burling who have been pursuing a lawsuit claiming SeaWorld customers were duped by false portrayals about the well-being of the park's orcas.

SeaWorld's lawyers at Norton Rose Fulbright and Kinsella Weitzman Iser Kump & Aldisert filed a motion for sanctions in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California late last year claiming the Covington lawyers filed claims they knew were frivolous, and worked to feed discovery material to an organization that's against keeping the animals in captivity that's behind the lawsuit.

At the end of a hearing addressing the sanctions issue, U.S. District Judge Jeffrey White asked Covington lawyers what he should make of deposition testimony that seemed to contradict allegations made by one of the plaintiffs who claimed she paid for her own ticket and enjoyed the kind of animal entertainment and education SeaWorld provides.

In deposition testimony, plaintiff Kelly Nelson said it was her husband who purchased her SeaWorld ticket. She also answered “No” when asked if she generally enjoys the type of animal entertainment available at SeaWorld.

White said the testimony leads him to believe that some allegations were at least “somewhat misleading.” The judge added that if he decided Nelson didn't have standing to sue, it might lead him to conclude the firm didn't conduct “a reasonable investigation into the facts.”

But the lawyers at Covington contend SeaWorld's counsel has simply cherry-picked snippets of testimony to mischaracterize the case. Christine Haskett, the lead Covington partner on the case, said she and her colleagues acted on the understanding that a purchase involves providing property in exchange for something in return and that married couples with joint accounts have shared property.

“It honestly didn't occur to us that the mechanics of who actually touches a credit card would actually affect a purchase,” Haskett said.

Covington associate Lindsey Barnhart added that even though Nelson said she didn't enjoy attractions such as SeaWorld, she further testified she frequently visits the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Barnhart argued the aquarium is an attraction that provides the same sorts of entertainment and educational experiences with sea life.

The exchange took place at the end of a two-hour hearing dealing with both the sanctions issue and SeaWorld's motion for summary judgment. White issued a tentative order before Friday's hearing indicating that he was likely to at least partially deny SeaWorld's motion. The judge's filing also listed most of the questions he asked the parties to address during Friday's arguments, but not the questions regarding Nelson's seeming contradictions. He called those questions a “pop quiz” in contrast to the “open book test” nature of the rest of the hearing.

Among the predrafted questions was one that would seem to bode well for the Covington lawyers: The judge asked SeaWorld's lawyers whether he could sanction Covington for failing to conduct a reasonable investigation of the plaintiffs' allegations if he denied the defense summary judgment motion finding some facts still in dispute.

SeaWorld lawyer Lawrence Iser of Kinsella Weitzman said that only a portion of the plaintiff's allegations have to be provably false for the judge to issue sanctions. “A duty to investigate arose,” Iser said, “and it's very clear that there was no investigation.”