LIHU'E, Kaua'i — An angry Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe on Tuesday ordered attorneys in the latest challenge to Steve Case's purchase of Grove Farm Co. to file a clear, concise brief — and she emphasized brief — or have the case thrown out before trial.

Attorneys for former Grove Farm shareholders last year filed a complaint the size of a novel, with 53,700 words. Earlier this year, Watanabe ordered them to condense it. The lawyers came back with a 40 percent reduction, but it was still more than 37,000 words in 96 pages.

Watanabe said she read it all and found "a very convoluted, redundant complaint" and that it would create an unfair burden on defendants to respond to it. "The court is striking this complaint," she said.

East Coast attorney Matthew Simmons, who said he wrote the complaint, apologized for misunderstanding the court's directions.

"We really tried. We did cut 40 percent out of it, eliminated the introduction and facts going back to the 1800s. ... We went through the entire complaint," he said.

Watanabe was not mollified.

"This is not a situation of quantity, it is a situation of quality. ... You actually took out things that should have remained and left in things that should have come out," the judge said.

She gave Simmons and co-counsel Damon Senaha 60 days to file a new complaint, and if it doesn't meet her requirements, she promised to dismiss the case entirely.

In the case, former stockholders are charging that former AOL chief Steve Case received special treatment when he bought Grove Farm, and that the stockholders were misled about the condition of the company. The suit names Case and his companies, the former Grove Farm Board, and attorneys involved in the transaction.

Reach Jan TenBruggencate at jant@honoluluadvertiser.com.