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The skirmish even extended into the dining room atop Mount Wilson. Seating arrangements for lunch at the Monastery followed a strict protocol: The observer scheduled to use the 100-inch telescope always sat at the head of the table, the 60-inch-telescope observer to his right, and the solar-tower observer to the left. Down the table it went in order of diminishing telescopic prominence. But one day Hubble arrived on the mountain for a run on the 60-inch and slyly switched the napkin rings, each specially marked with a staff member's name. When the dinner bell rang van Maanen, then working on the 100-inch, proceeded into the dining room and found himself placed lower down, with Hubble victoriously positioned at the table's prime spot. It was the ultimate insult one could receive on the mountain.

Drawing on his former legal training, “Hubble skillfully employed trial tactics to attain a favorable verdict from the court of science,” contends Hubble scholar Norriss Hetherington. First Hubble got his observing partner, Milton Humason, to photograph the Triangulum spiral over two nights in September 1931. He then compared this latest image with a photograph of the same galaxy taken in 1910. This was followed by new photographs of other prominent spirals long studied by van Maanen, such as the Whirlpool and Pinwheel galaxies. Hubble spent hours and hours comparing the old and new plates—picking out comparison stars, just as van Maanen did, and looking for telltale signs of rotation over the years. In the end, he concluded that “no evidence of motion” could be found. In a strategic coup de grâce, Hubble commandeered Seth Nicholson, who had assisted van Maanen in his earlier measurements, to examine the plates as well. This time Nicholson saw no changes whatsoever, at least within the range of probable error. The clever prosecutor had gotten a key witness to reverse his opinion on the courtroom stand. It appeared that van Maanen had made a personal error in regard to spiral rotation, simply finding what he expected to find.

Hubble wrote up his findings for publication, but his bosses were not pleased at all with his first draft. Breaking all the rules of dispassionate scientific discourse, Hubble's grudge with van Maanen was starkly visible upon the page. “Its language was intemperate in many places and the attitude of animosity was marked. He objected to any material change in the wording and a deadlock seemed to be indicated,” confided Mount Wilson director Walter Adams to the president of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, John Merriam. Like the preparations for a treaty between two warring nations, resolution involved delicate diplomacy, although in this case the principals involved worked at the same place. Frederick Seares, who served as the editor for papers written at Mount Wilson, did not want the battle to go public. If he solely published Hubble's criticism of van Maanen's work, it would be as if he were taking sides. A serious man known for his courtly manner, Seares wanted to maintain a certain decorum. Otherwise, morale at the observatory could plummet.

Seares decided that it would be best to prepare a joint statement, to be published under all the names of the people involved in reviewing the case—Hubble, van Maanen, Nicholson, as well as Walter Baade, a new staff member who had also assisted. All the parties agreed to this cooperative effort—except for Hubble, who opposed it violently. He declared “no compromise, no compromise” as the truce was worked on, insisting on no watering down of his views of the evidence. Hubble was sure he was right and van Maanen wrong. Adams was appalled by this response. “I do not feel that Hubble's attitude in this matter was in any way justified… This is not the first case in which Hubble has seriously injured himself in the opinion of scientific men by the intemperate and intolerant way in which he has expressed himself,” Adams reported to Merriam. Seares was so exasperated by Hubble's pigheaded attitude