RIAA v. Santangelo Default Judgment Vacated

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "It was reported last week that at the July 13th status conference in Elektra v. Santangelo II, the default judgment taken by the RIAA against Patti Santangelo's daughter, Michelle, was vacated by Judge Stephen C. Robinson. This has now been confirmed in papers filed by the RIAA's lawyers in which they indicated that the Judge vacated the default judgment because he prefers cases to be decided on their merits, rather than by default (pdf). The papers sought $513 in attorneys fees for (a) procuring the default judgment and (b) preparing judgment enforcement documents. Patti Santangelo is the first RIAA defendant known to have moved to dismiss the RIAA complaint. After two years of litigation, the RIAA dropped its case against Patti Santangelo, leaving open only the question of whether the RIAA will be ordered to pay her attorneys fees."

Comments

Re:layer-ease

[Joren]

Quoth Wikipedia:

Default judgment is a binding judgment in favor of the plaintiff when the defendant has not responded to a summons or has failed to appear before a court. In a civil trial involving damages, a default judgment will enter the amount of damages pled in the original complaint. If proof of damages is required, the court may schedule another hearing on that issue. A defendant can have a default judgment vacated, or set aside, by filing a motion, after the judgment is entered, by showing of a proper excuse.

Re:layer-ease

[mddevice]

A default judgement is awarded when a defendant fails to respond or show up in court. To vacate is to basically cancel the judgement and give the defendant another chance. I'm not a lawyer, but I believe that's the basic idea.

Re:Shoudn't really be any question

[Lumpy]

not really if you are middle class then you can easily afford legal insurance. that $45.00 a month I pay covers a lot of things with good lawyers all over the country. Middle class can easily afford this, Hell I blow $45.00 on lunch at times. Middle class is $55,000.00 to $170,000.00 so you have a crapload of cash so even if you have to go to court you can easily afford to drop $4500.00 on a lawyer if you needed to, sure that means the disney trip is out this Christmas but not the end of the world.

What it screws with is the poor. Poor cant afford $45.00 a month for legal insurance so they have to pay the big lawyers fees.

That is what they target, they target the poor. i have yet to see one middle class or rich person targeted by the RIAA because they know that those people have the means to fight back.

RIAA target the lower class, fake middle class, and the poor. Fake middle class are those that dont own anything but get credit up the wazoo to look like they are middle class, no they cant afford another $45.00 a month as they are already paying minimums to all their credit accounts... Yes there are lots of those out there sadly.

RIAA tactics

[dna_(c)(tm)(r)]

IANAL etc, etc. But as far as I remember, the RIAA tactics were:

1. Screenshot of IP address
2. Open case against John Doe
3. Get summary judgement, declaring the plaintiff guilty - obviously in his/her absence, so by default
4. Determine identity of the 'John Doe'
5. Pressure into hefty payments

The plaintiffs never had a chance to defend themselves. The judge apparently found these proceedings not entirely agreeable.