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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)."
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?
This is another win for little guys trying to defend themselves. Foster wanted the RIAA to pay her legal fees, they bulked trying to claim that her lawyer inflated his fees. The Judge basically called them to the mat and said that if they are spending [large sums of money] persecuting Foster, then she is entitled to have her expensive lawyer's fees paid. Inversely, if the RIAA was paying a first year law grad to handle the case all on their own, and Foster had hired a $2500/hr dream team, the Judge would likely come down in the opposite way.
-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!!!!
Little guys shouldn't be allowed to defend themselves. If you can't afford to win, you don't deserve to win!
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.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
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
Or if it's a very small amount per lawsuit, then it will show that they're not really researching enough per lawsuit to actually have a legitimate claim. This seems to be lose-lose for them, unless they've spent some "golden" number in between the two extremes (but what this number is will vary wildly in the eyes of different observers).
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
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.
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
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.
You are so wrong. The last thing in the world the RIAA wants is for an opponent like Marilyn Barringer-Thomson to know (a) how much they pay their lawyers and (b) what the financial arrangement is with the lawyers. I imagine that they will stipulate to the reasonableness of Ms. Foster's fees now, rather than actually disclose the billing records.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Witty. Yet you forget that this is slashdot... you should've used a car analogy instead of a sports analogy. Woulda got more +1 insightfuls that way. :)
FATMOUSE + YOU = FATMOUSE
I doubt it. My guess is that the lawyers they're using are 'low bidders'.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
Chalk one big one up for the good guys.
If this was trivial you wouldn't have seen ACLU, Public Citizen, Electronic Frontier Foundation, American Association of Law Libraries, and ACLU Foundation of Oklahoma come in with an amicus curiae brief explaining the importance of the attorneys fee award here.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
No, that's furjury. Not to be confused with furgery, which is an illegal copycat.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
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
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