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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)."
Why should I care about some minor maneuver in the legal end-game of a case that's been already decided?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The RIAA has been ordered to turn over its attorneys' billing records
So my first question is, do they get a volume discount?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
We're just asking the MAFIAA to prove that these lawsuits aren't a legal scam, designed to put money in lawyer's pockets. How can we trust such an organization's motives if they won't tell us how much money their lawyers are making?
"Please describe the scientific nature of the 'whammy'" - Agent Scully
I assume the records themselves would confidential, but is it acceptable to publish a summary of the hours? Are there rules about the level of detail allowed?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
One suggestion I've seen for making the legal system fairer is that the loser would pay the winner legal fees equal to their own. If you want to spend $2m litigating against someone, and they defend themselves, then if you win you are out of pocket $2m for legal fees. If you lose, then they get $2m. This encourages litigants to not spend more on legal expenses than the other can afford.
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Now if you could only get a hold of the procedures Media Sentry is trying so desperately to keep secret.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
You can't make the lawyer fees the topic and then refuse to talk about the lawyer fees.
The RIAA's argument that they shouldn't have to pay attorney's fees is based, in part, that the cost of their legal team would have exceeded the amount Foster would have needed to pay them if the RIAA won. ( http://www.ilrweb.com/viewILRPDF.asp?filename=capi tol_foster_070221MotReconsider , page 4)
The judge is now saying "put up or shut up."
The system I would suggest is quite similar.
X sues Y for Z$
X wins, gets Z$
Y wins, gets Z$ from X + the greater of Attorney Fees(X, Y)
Currently there is no incentive NOT to sue. You sue, you lose, more often than not, you are only out Attorney Fees.
Further, I would remove plaintiffs from collecting "Punitive Damages" as those should go to the State or into a fund to compensate victims of similar crimes/losses, where there is no Plaintiff to be found.
As the current system is empowered, most people view lawsuits like a rigged lottery.
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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.
Is the RIAA now obligated to turn over this information (and presumably make it part of the public record), or do they have the option to refuse disclosure and simply pay the opposing legal bills without contesting the amount any further?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
No, not exactly. She's trying to recover the fees so that way she ends this with only a headache and no money lost or gained. They submitted how much her legal fees were, the RIAA complained and said it was too much, so the judge is saying, "And how much did you spend?"
It's very relevant if her fees were $10,000, the RIAA said it was too much, and then we find out they spent $50,000 suing her.
The first rule of lawyer fees is you don't talk about lawyer fees.
-- 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.
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.
The post is only partly correct. Yes, a party normally cannot be compelled to divulge communications with counsel. This is an exception to/variation on that rule. First, no advice is being revealed, although perhaps some trial strategy (ie, an entry like, "research New York law on defenses to malicious prosecution") would be revealed. BUT, the substantive part of the case is over, so the other party gets no tactical advantage from seeing the billing records. Second, when the issue is attorney fees, parties have to produce the records to the court - simple as that. Here, the defendant (prevailing party, entitled to some award of fees) had to produce fee and cost records in order to ask for fee shifting. When plaintiff (losing party, facing the prospect of paying) objected to the reasonableness of defendant's request, the court decided to look at both sides' expenditures to get a sense of scale. No judicial activism (code for "a judge doing something I don't like") here, just a judge following SOP for fee requests.
Disclaimer: I am a lawyer, but I have NO involvement in this case whatsoever.
The fee arrangement isn't covered by attorney-client privilege. An attorney and a client conducting a business transaction (i.e., paying for the legal work) aren't protected, because it is only legal advice and the information the legal advice is based on that is protected.
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.
A false set of books presented as evidence would be purjury.
Is purjury like when your guilt is decided by a swarm of cats?
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
... and I thought car analogies were bad.
I doubt it. My guess is that the lawyers they're using are 'low bidders'.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
I believe that actually will happen, because the judge has specifically provided that Ms. Foster can supplement her fee application after the RIAA is done with its fake 'discovery' on 'reasonableness', and denied the RIAA's application to change that provision.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Before the law changes there has to be widespread knowledge and outrage.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
These records are clearly covered by attorney-client confidentiality and this order is going to get slapped down on appeal faster than you can say denied (IAAL).
Yet again, this is proof that when someone says clearly, they're trying to snow you. Here's my narrow refutation - care to provide something of equal or greater value?
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
1. Whenever someone starts out "I'm no fan of RIAA, but......" that's a dead giveaway.
2. Any one with any legal knowledge knows that (a) attorneys' bills, statements, time records, and expense records are NOT privileged (b) the order is not an appealable order and (c) if it were appealable there is no basis for reversing it.
3. What rights and privileges is he/she/it talking about that were denied? The RIAA was a year in default in responding to the discovery notices. After the motion was made, it submitted its papers 2 days late, the judge accepted them anyway and read them carefully, and knocked down each frivolous argument the RIAA was making.
4. Ignore this troll.
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.
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