Slashdot Mirror
RIAA Has to Disclose Attorneys Fees In Foster Case
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "The RIAA has been ordered to turn over its attorneys' billing records by March 26, 2007, in Capitol v. Foster in Oklahoma. The 4- page decision and order, issued in connection with the determination of the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's attorneys fees, requires the RIAA to produce the attorneys' time sheets, billing statements, billing records, and costs and expense records. The Court reviewed authorities holding that an opponent's attorneys fees are a relevant factor in determining the reasonableness of attorneys fees, quoting a United States Supreme Court case which held that 'a party cannot litigate tenaciously and then be heard to complain about the time necessarily spent by his opponent in response' (footnote 11 to City of Riverside v. Rivera)."
Because the person who presents the amounts will (hopefully) be a CPA, who would not only be risking contempt and perjury charges, but also losing their professional license.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
Court cases are about details. Most court cases, criminal or civil, do not always end in a Perry Mason moment. Little details can reveal much that becomes important later In this case, the amount of money and work that the RIAA has spent in one case can show much about their modus operandi . If they spend very little money or time on a lawsuit, does that not show that they really don't do their homework when sueing someone? Lawsuits are costly and take forever. If one of their lawyers is suing hundreds of people at once, how can that lawyer really get all the details right. They can't. Mistakes will be made. Other plaintiffs can use this information to show that the RIAA did not do the due diligence before filing (something which we expected but is now proved.) My two cents.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
This isn't a win, this isn't an anything. Wait until we see what the judge actually awards.
He may decide "aww gee you guys sure spent a lot fighting this, you must have had a strong good faith belief in your claims, therefore Ms Foster isn't entitled to that much".
He may decide "you guys are assholes and I dont like you wasting my time, so bend over, here comes da gavel".
This news by itself means nothing. It's like a sports announcer announcing "and Manning throws the ball... " and then going to commercial. The throw is meaningless, we need to know if it's caught, fumbled, intercepted, or what.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
You can't make the lawyer fees the topic and then refuse to talk about the lawyer fees.
It'll be interesting to see how much the RIAA is willing to spend on a single copyright infringement lawsuit. If they are putting huge resources into suing individual customers, it will look very bad on them.
Well, worse than they already look I guess. The public already sees these as David vs Goliath lawsuits. But now we'll be able to put a number on how big and bad Goliath really is.
Spoken like someone truly astroturfing for the RIAA.
-- then only very very very rich people would ever dare to sue anyone. Sometimes people who aren't so well-off have cause to sue big wealthy corporations; under your system they would be absolutely totally screwed for life if they lost. The current system favours the incredibly wealthy; so does the system you propose.
The throw is meaningless, we need to know if it's caught, fumbled, intercepted, or what.
Even your analogy misses the point. You can't fumble the throw. The next step can be one of only a few things, an incomplete pass (and we even know where the next play will be from if that happens), a completed pass (with the run or fumble or whatever after), or an interception. It can't be a running play. It can't be a fumble (except after the pass is complete, which is some future step not covered here).
This case has decided that there will be lawyer fees decided for the defendant. The plaintiff claimed the lawyers fees are too high. The judge said "oh, if they are so high, tell me what you spent so I can get an idea of what you think is fair for a side in this case." This presumes several things. First, the intention is to still award fees to the defendant, as originally stated. The claim of the fees being too high is being considered. If the fees the defendant claimed are in line with the actual expenses of the plaintiff, the award will stand. If they are not in line with the plaintiff, the defendant will have to defend the high charges.
As I see it, it is a win. We expect that the plaintiff's fees are high. That means that anything close to the legal fees can be named in the countersuit by all future defendants.
Learn to love Alaska
So by that reasoning, how much Ms. Foster paid her attorneys is covered by attorney-client confidentiality, and RIAA should just shut up and pay the bill? RIAA decided to make an issue of Ms. Foster's attorney fees being unreasonable. The judge, in a "one person cuts the cake, the other person picks the piece" stroke of wisdom, decided to use RIAA's attorney fees as a measuring stick for what was reasonable.
What's reasonable is what she paid to defend herself whether it be $1 or $1M. The RIAA brought a lawsuit against her and she is entitled to spend whatever amount necessary to defend herself. If they don't like the cost too bad. The RIAA brought the initial action. Therefore they have to be ready to pay whatever the defended had to spend to defend themselves.
Naturally, ianal, but my guess is they can probably avoid disclosure if they scratch a check to Foster's lawyers. From my limited experience in litigation (I offer expert witness testimony in my field of expertise), usually it's fair game to cut and run when things turn against you. At this point, Capitol's best move probably is to just call butterfingers and pay up. No matter how they play this, they come out looking like fools. Their billings are either too large, in which case Foster gets her fees, or too small, and everybody knows they're running lean in these cases. There is no middle ground, by the way. It's either too much or too little. Finally, they still lose if they pay up without disclosure because the perception is that they are hiding one of the two aforementioned cases. The only advantage to them is that there's no telling which it is, which will keep up the guessing game for future defendants.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
We can't. But purjury is a felony, and I presume that the attorney in question would rather not be brought up on those charges. A false set of books presented as evidence would be purjury.
Do you Gentoo!?
What's reasonable is what she paid to defend herself whether it be $1 or $1M.
That's not reasonable at all, and can't be the way the system is allowed to work.
If it were, my defense to a lawsuit, ESPECIALLY if I had a lot of cash to pay lawyers, could very well be:
"I'm going to spend $100 million paying my lawyers to win this case, and for $100 million they will win, and then I am sticking you with the bill."
A fair legal process demands that only REASONABLE fees are recoverable.
And, more generally, the less money given to the sharks, the better off our economy is.
paintball
That's not reasonable at all, and can't be the way the system is allowed to work.
If it were, my defense to a lawsuit, ESPECIALLY if I had a lot of cash to pay lawyers, could very well be:
"I'm going to spend $100 million paying my lawyers to win this case, and for $100 million they will win, and then I am sticking you with the bill."
A fair legal process demands that only REASONABLE fees are recoverable.
And, more generally, the less money given to the sharks, the better off our economy is.
If someone should bring a lawsuit against me then I have the right to defend myself. And if I spend $100M to defend myself then I should be entitled to recover those costs. Period. I shouldn't have to compromise my defense because the person bringing said action may not like how much I spend to defend myself. If they're worried about that then they need to think long and hard about entering into litigation with me.
I don't mean to ask a stupid question, but I will anyway. Why will the amount necessarily seem too large or too small? Why isn't there a good reasonable middle number?
(Also, what is your field?)
Look at how much stuff in the SCO case is 'under seal' and we don't get to see it. I strongly suspect that this information will not become public. (But IANAL.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
I didn't write the comment, but it's probably significant that they've already established that $4,000 is "enough" to settle the cases and to recover whatever was "lost" to the music bandits.
So, they are rational actors if they spend up to $4,000, and no more, to bring each complaint. But nobody wins all the time. If they expect to win, say 3 cases out of 4, then they can rationally drop only up to $3,000 per case, but no more.
The problem is, you can't get much lawyerin', research or expert assistance for $4,000... even less for $3,000.
So if they're spending a rational amount, then they aren't proceeding to court with very good data (a single, simple letter from an ordinary neighborhood attorney can cost $200 to $400).
And if they're spending lots more than $4,000, that's bad too. Nobody with clean hands and honest motives spends $40,000 to recover $4,000.
Civil courts can't do much more than award cash to fix boo-boo's. Considering that, the settlement amounts, and the cost of attorney-time, there's a strong suggestion that the RIAA has some unspoken motive and is simply using the court to advance it. That sort of thing doesn't look good at all, and IMO tends to catch the attention and ire of courts.
Before the law changes there has to be widespread knowledge and outrage.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I realize that it isn't for everyone, but there ARE enough people winning large awards to make it hard or impossible for doctors to get insurance in some states. For a high-profile example, John Edwards won a $2.75 million dollar award (the jury awarded $6.5 million but it was reduced on appeal) against a hospital for an infant born with cerebral palsy. He also settled for $1.5 million with the OB. If we forget for a moment the really... interesting tactics he used in the case and just assume that the doctor WAS guilty, why should the parents get $4.25 million dollars? If this isn't like "winning the lottery", then I don't know what is. And yes, I know that the parents probably got about half of the award because the lawyers probably worked on contingency. I think this is another part of the problem when the awards are allowed to be so high.
One problem is that many people have come around to believe that a doctor's mistake is equivalent to gross negligence. Even the best doctors make an occasional mistake, and they should not be forced out of the system because of it.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
In the UK an award of 1p damages would almost certainly lead to the plaintiff having to pay costs. If you go to the high court and you're awarded damages less than the maximum from the next court down then you usually have to pay expenses. Also if the defendant offers to settle and you are awarded less than the offer, you pay costs. It's fair.
This action by the RIAA is about precedent. They've almost certainly paid far, far more in legal fees than they stood to gain. The defendant would have been liable for such costs and the RIAA would have pursued them aggressively. They lost and they're trying to weasel out of paying costs, not because they care about the money (it's a drop in the ocean to them): it's purely punitive for them. Any expense and hassle they can cause will discourage people from exercising their rights to defend themselves. They don't care about losing a million or two on this case as long as it doesn't affect their other cases.
the more they over-think the plumbing the easier it is to stop up the pipe
What it's about is:
-the judge said the RIAA has to reimburse Ms. Foster for her reasonable attorneys fees
-the RIAA said it wanted to challenge the 'reasonableness' of the fees Ms. Foster's lawyer charged
-the judge says that the amount the RIAA paid its lawyers is relevant to seeing if Ms. Foster's lawyer charged too much
Don't be surprised if the RIAA now abandons its challenge to the 'reasonableness' of Ms. Foster's fees, rather than allow its own financial arrangements to be disclosed.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful