By a Staff Writer

U.S. District Judge Wm. Matthew Byrne Jr. yesterday denied a motion for summary judgment in a suit accusing Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Patrick Murphy and others of fraud and conspiracy involving the disappearance of money belonging to Dr. George Taus and his ex-wife.

In denying Taus's motion for summary judgment, Bryne slammed Taus' attorney for not addressing all the causes of action, warning that he was not "going to fuss around with a shotgun approach."

The jurist also warned the plaintiff's attorneys to trim their long list of causes of action, warning it could result in a jury reaching conflicting verdicts.

Murphy was present in court. Byrne on Thursday had threatened to impose sanctions if he did not have a good reason for being absent.

Murphy did not address the bench. He was represented by Pasadena attorney Richard A. Moss and his associate Tracy Green. Byrne last month granted a motion by Murphy's previous attorney to withdraw as counsel.

That attorney, Thomas Dovidio of Diamond Bar, also appeared yesterday. Byrne had ordered him to appear to answer questions regarding his files on the case.

Dovidio said he had turned over six cartons of files to attorney Gary Laff two weeks ago. Moss, however, said he had just received the files Saturday, and had only had to time to digest enough to grasp the gist of the motions before the court appearance yesterday. He cautioned that he had no way of determining whether he was in possession of the complete set of files since there was no index.

Laff was also present, though Byrne had to repeatedly warn him not to intervene in the proceedings after he told the judge he was only working on a separate bankruptcy case involving the same allegations.

Byrne ordered the parties to return to court on Thursday at 1 p.m. to work out a stipulation of facts in the case. At 2 p.m. that day he is to decide whether to postpone the April 11 trial date to give Moss and Green time to catch up.

Byrne indicated he would grant a few extra weeks, but warned, "In all fairness, Murphy had a lot of time to get a counsel."

Murphy, Taus and several others are being sued by Smith Barney Inc. and Prudential Securities Inc. over the transfer of moneys from IRA securities account shared by Taus and his wife. After Susan Taus charged that money owed to her as part of a marital settlement was missing, the firms filed the fraud and conversion suit.

Most of yesterday's discussion involved two matters: Taus's motion for summary judgment, which was joined in by Arnold Secord, another defendant in the suit; and whether Secord was fit to participate in further depositions.

The judge said "you can't help but have suspicions about the health situations" in the case, referring to claims by both Secord and Murphy that illnesses have prevented them from participating in the case.

Byrne ordered an independent medical examination of Secord be conducted Friday by doctors of the plaintiff's choosing and said he would decide the next week whether to allow a further deposition. If he does, he said, it would take place in his courtroom.

"He's sort of one of the keys to this thing," Byrne said of Secord. Byrne ran through the basic contentions of the case: that Taus's nearly $2 million in proceeds from cashing out his IRA accounts were transferred from a Bank of America account here to one in Nevada in Secord's name, were invested in a company called Copex that had been set up two months earlier with a small amount of Secord's money, and were then transferred out again before it could be invested.

Taus' attorney, Richard F. Seone, asked that a psychiatrist also examine Secord, saying that if he "is psychotic or delusional it directly affects my client." Byrne declined to order it, but said Seone could pay for an examination if he wanted.

Byrne also said that on Thursday he would consider a motion by another defendant, Stephen Alexander, to consolidate the securities firms' suit with bankruptcy proceedings brought by Taus's bankruptcy trustee.