A New York judge delayed a long-awaited ruling on the court battle between Macy’s and JCPenney over Martha Stewart after calling a hearing to grill lawyers about an exclusive story by The Post.
As The Post reported Sept. 4, JCPenney CEO Mike Ullman has decided to scrap a line of licensed home goods from Stewart that sparked a lawsuit from Macy’s, even though New York State Supreme Court Justice Jeffrey Oing has yet to rule on the matter.
Oing called attorneys into a private conference Wednesday morning to discuss the story but emerged about a half an hour later with no decision.
“At this point, I’m going to go forward with issuing a decision… hopefully in a shorter time, rather than a later time,” Oing told the court.
Yesterday, sources told The Post that Penney is moving to replace a line of Stewart-designed goods with a slew of store brands including Liz Claiborne.
In brief comments from the bench after holding the conference with lawyers, the judge said he wanted to go “right to the horse” as he questioned Penney counsel Mark Epstein in private about the situation.
Representatives for Martha Stewart, Penney and Macy’s declined to comment.