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RIAA Balks At Complying With Document Order
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "When the RIAA was ordered to turn over its attorneys' billing records to the defendant's lawyer in Capitol v. Foster, there was speculation that they would never comply with the order. As it turns out they have indeed balked at compliance, saying that they are preparing a motion for a protective order seeking confidentiality (something they could have asked for, but didn't, in their opposition papers to the initial motion). Having none of that, Ms. Foster's lawyer has now made a motion to compel their compliance with the Court's March 15th order."
This is something I don't understand about the US judicial system, and maybe NYCL can help explain it. If a judge orders someone to do something, and they refuse, isn't it then the justice department's responsibility to enforce that judge's order? Why do we so often see a judge's orders ignored, challenged, appealed, ad nauseum?
As an example, I heard on NPR yesterday President Bush's counsel inform the reporter that, should the House vote to subpoena Rove et. al., the White House would be refusing that order. He flat out told them, "No, we will not comply with a judge's order." Now, I understand there is a stickler here with Executive Privilege, but this seems to me to be a growing trend. What happened to the good old days when a judge would give an order, a person would refuse, and they would be thrown in jail for contempt until a) they complied, or b) an appeals court overruled the judge? Am I just naive in my belief that the judicial system was supposed to, I don't know, be able to actually enforce their decisions?
Public use of any portable music system is a virtually guaranteed indicator of sociopathic tendencies. -- Zoso
a) Why does the defendent care about the plaintiff's billing hours?
i tol_foster_070221MotReconsider , page 4)
The defendent doesn't care, the judge does.
One of the arguments the RIAA is using to say they don't need to pay Foster's legal fees is 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=cap
The judge is now saying "put up or shut up."
b) Why does the plaintiff care if the defendent finds out?
Two possible ideas I can come up with...(disclaimer, IANAL, so these may not even matter)
1, it's a disgustingly high amount which is now released into the public record, which could bode badly in future cases
2, it's a stall tactic, plain and simple.
As I understand it, the court ordered the RIAA to pay for the defendant's legal bills. The defendant presented the plaintiff and the court with a detailed invoice. Then the plaintiff complained that the bill was "unreasonable." The defendant then responded with a motion for the plaintiff's bill pretty much saying "if it's unreasonable, how much did you spend?" Basically if the RIAA never made the argument that the bills was unreasonable they wouldn't have to be forced to prove what is reasonable. The court granted the motion agreeing with the defendant and is only trying to determine what is a reasonable settlement. There is precedent that a party to a court case cannot spend as much as they want on a case and then complain about how much the other side spent when they lose and have to pay the legal bills.
Normally the plaintiff wouldn't care . . . if they didn't have something to hide. My best guess is that these suits en masse would show that their lawyers are not spending enough time on each case and just filing against people without really researching the details. In other words, they are abusing the system.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
The court has ordered the RIAA to pay the defendant's attourney fees in this case. They want the RIAA's documents so that they can determine what "reasonable attourney fees" are.
What difference does it make how much RIAA pays its own lawyers? Shouldn't the attourney fees be whatever the defense lawyers charged? Does that mean that as long as I can find a lawyer who works for free (or only gets paid a percentage of the settlement, etc) then I can file all the frivilous lawsuits I want without fear of being forced to pay for the defense attourney fees?
Heaven forbid that the President's aides should be concerned that what advice they give to the man elected President of the United States ought to leak out into the public.
...unless, of course, I was giving advice that I would be ashamed for the public to know...
I mean, as members of the Executive Branch, shouldn't they be, like, upholding the Constitution, and stuff? Why are they worried about their advice getting out? I would be PROUD to be an aide to the President, and I would tell everyone "Hey, yeah, that thing that he said? Yeah, that was my idea...."
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