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Judge Orders Record Company Execs To Duluth
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Lest there be any doubt that District Judge Michael J. Davis, presiding over the Duluth, Minnesota, case, Capitol Records v. Thomas, really does 'get it' about the toxic effect the RIAA, its lead henchman Matthew Oppenheim, and their lawyers have had on the judicial process, all such doubt should be removed by the order he just entered (PDF). It removes control of the decision-making process from the RIAA, Oppenheim, and the lawyers. In the order Judge Davis spells out, in the clearest possible terms so that there can be no misunderstanding, that at the extraordinary 2-day settlement conference he has scheduled for later this month, each record company plaintiff is ordered to produce an 'officer' of the corporation, or a 'managing agent' of the corporation, who has corporate, decision-making, 'power.' The judge makes it clear that no one who has 'settlement authority' with any limits or range attached to it will be acceptable. This means that 'RIAA hitman' Matthew Oppenheim will not be able to control the settlement process as he has been permitted by the Courts to do in the past."
My heart leaped when I first read that as "Judge Orders Record Company Execs To Death". I'm so disappointed.
This means that 'RIAA hitman' Matthew Oppenheim will not be able to control the settlement process as he has been permitted by the Courts to do in the past.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
Maybe this is the beginning of the end and a new business model will show up. take the lawyers out of the mix and get to the heart of the matter? This will be interesting to watch
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Work's been kind of slow for him lately. Perhaps he can represent one of the record companies.
I only wish that there had been some way to make it an official judicial order, requiring them to send someone, something that could have major legal / monetary penalties applied if they don't comply, preferably with U.S. Marshall escort, in hand-cuffs if they refused or tried to weasel out - but that would be dreaming big...
Who is general failure, and why is he reading my hard drive?
Let's hope that more judges do this in places that record company execs will hate to visit. Not to trash Duluth, but you know that the recording industry guys think that any place but NYC or LA is not up to their standard of cool. I want to see these jerks have to visit Phoenix in July, followed by Houston, St Louis, New Orleans, etc. Then in the dead of winter they can tour Fargo, St. Paul and Buffalo during the snow storm season. Fry em and freeze em.
NYCL, would you favor us with your opinion regarding what you think will happen at the settlement meeting? For one thing, is it clear who the settlement will favor? How unusual is an order like this, and why do you think the judge entered it?
And why is it so important that Oppenheim can't represent the RIAA at the meeting? Presumably he was only following executive orders anyway. What does it matter who the representative is?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEX1dYyvmig
the best piece of music for this trek
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No matter if this is good or bad news against the RAFIAA, but when I read ...
"Lest there be any doubt ... the toxic effect [...] have had on the judicial process ... the decision-making process ... in the clearest possible terms ... can be no misunderstanding ... the extraordinary 2-day settlement ... who has corporate, decision-making, power ... with any limits or range attached to it", etc.
Oh bloody hell, don't know who did it, but this /. summary must have been written by a lawyer, or at least someone who desperately wants to become one! Not a good sign....
Browsers shouldn't have a back button!! It's all about going forward...
Other than the fact that the settlement conference will be with Judge Davis instead of a magistrate, this order is completely standard.
For comparison, here is the relevant portion of a notice of settlement conference in another recent Minnesota federal district court case:
"Counsel who will actually try the case and each party, armed with full settlement discretion, shall be present. If individuals are parties to this case, they shall be present. If a orporation or other collective entity is a party, a duly authorized officer or managing agent of that party shall be present. This means that each party must attend through a person who has the power to change that party=s settlement posture during the course of the conference. If the party representative has a limit, or âoecapâ on his or her authority, this requirement is not satisfied."
Either you have someone at the settlement meeting that can make decisions, or you have a dozen settlement meetings with a few days in between while the person reports back to whomever can make decisions, which would be an enormous waste of the court's time. I think it's also fair to say if you're going to sue someone/etc. and say you're willing to settle you honor that and actually have someone who can settle at the meeting. Not rocket science. How they got away with this before is beyond me.
Oh no, here comes an S!!! Doh.
Talk about a long slog.
I scream. You scream. I assume that means we're both acquainted with the problem. We proceed.
I don't think a contempt charge is possible since the order doesn't name a specific person to show up. It just asks for somebody in authority, don't care who. IANAL though.
But from the tone it sounds like "if you don't do this - you forfeit." And I don't think anyone wants that to happen.
Reason being, this bit:
If complete agreement is not reached, each attorney shall deliver to chambers on or before March 23, 2009 by noon, a letter which shall include: (1) the parties' respective settlement positions before the meeting; (2) the parties' respective positions following the meeting; (3) a concise analysis of each remaining liability issue, with citation to relevant authority; (4) a reasoned, itemized computation of each element of the alleged damages, with a concise summary of the testimony of each witness who will testify in support of the damage computations; and (5) a reasoned analysis justifying their client's last stated settlement position as well as any additional information believed to be helpful to the process of reaching agreement.
I don't read a lot of legal documents, but specifically points (3) and (4) sound an awful lot like a judge who's absolutely sick and tired of being jerked around.
If I read this right the judge is trying to expose exactly what's going on here. I hope that is his intention. It sounds like it to me. If that's the case, the RIAA will drop the case. If they don't, if the judge has his way, that that's it for the RIAA. And it certainly sounds like that's on the judge's agenda.
Because if the judge exposes this for the scam that it is, there will be the Mother Of All Class Action Countersuits, where the previous victims of this scam unite and get their money back. With damages added, of course.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
That's really the worst that could happen? Why this then? I can't imagine them disobeying any aspect of the order.
Toss a couple of bucks to the defendant instead of winning is not exactly an eternity having your liver eaten while chained to a rock*. I still don't get what's so intimidating here.
*Also known as "justice", around these parts.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
> The judge makes it clear that no one who has 'settlement authority' with any limits or range attached to it will be acceptable
There's still a possibility that the settlement will include beheadings, since the agent will have the authority to grant it.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
No "Fly High Duluth" references yet?
I don't know what the standard orders are like in Minnesota, but to me that looks like a standard settlement conference order that the clerk enters as a matter of course. In Massachusetts a judge I'm familiar with has an order just like that that's entered in every case where there's a settlement conference. NYCL, is there any reason to think that this one is aimed at the RIAA, or that the judge actually had something to do with it?
Duluth isn't Minneapolis. Just saying...
Looks to me like the record company execs are ordered to go to the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, not Duluth.
What is that, a Black Metal band?
I'm afraid that non-litigators (non-lawyers?) are reading a great deal into judicial orders that they don't understand. This is a standard, generic settlement conference order that, in one form or another, judges conducting settlement conferences routinely use to set their basic ground rules. Nothing specific about the case, nothing at all. And as other commenters have noted, those rules are often honored in the breach -- I personally have appeared at settlement conferences where nobody from the other side (save the lawyer) showed up. Obviously a breach of the order, but it's not treated as serious.
Slashdot needs a legal editor to moderate posts like this...it seems that half the law-related posts I read here are simply mistaken.
The world would be a significantly better place if the US Government were to send out the cruise missiles to every building listed as a corporate HQ in Delaware, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos, Bermuda, Jersey, Guernsey, Monaco, Lichtenstein, Zug...when you start in business with an intention to defraud, the omens are not good.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Let us say together ...
WhooooOOOOOoooooOOOOOoooooOOOoooo oOooOO OOoshh!!
Everyone is talking about what will happen if they don't show. My question is... why wouldn't they? What have they got to lose by appearing in court? It's not like they'll be personally convicted, right? What's the issue?
Hope they send trophies worthy of your wall. Good hunting Ray (NYCL)!
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
I hear the seder at Cinderella's Royale Table is really something. Finding the youngest at the table can be a real challenge sometime, though.
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If you have to ask....
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The British crisis started when it emerged that the Northern Rock mortgage lender had in fact hidden 60 billion of assets off balance sheet in an offshore fund called "Granite". Just as thieves would find life a lot harder if there were no fences, corporate criminals would find life a lot harder if there were no tax havens to conceal their activities. However, my point was a little different. When a corporation vests itself in eitgher a tax haven or a US State with low standards of corporate governance (Delaware), you can safely assume that they are not doing this from ethical motives.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
From the court order:
"A settlement conference will be held in the above-referenced matter on March 30,
2009 and March 31, 2009 beginning at 9:00 a.m., in Chambers, Suite 15E, U.S.
Courthouse, 300 South Fourth Street, Minneapolis, Minnesota, before Chief Judge Michael
J. Davis."
Nice editing job, kdawson.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I know this judge. My father was an attorney that tried many cases in front of him including his own divorce.
My father described him for the most part as a by the book sort of judge, as far as the book would go, but tended to side with the underdog when there was no specific rule dictating how he needed to rule.
My father also described his rulings as a bit irrational. Which in this case I would take to not be a good thing for record executive or their lawyers trying to game the system to punish the little guy basically using loop holes in the law.
Living in Chile
Duluth or Minneapolis, what's the difference? From what I hear, sending someone to Minnesota in late February/early March is punishment enough.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
To those readers here at Slashdot and on my blog who brought this error to my attention, I express my profound gratitude.
And to all of you who may have been misled by my post, I apologize profusely.
As it turns out....the order is a standard form commonly used in Minnesota's federal court for settlement conferences. Although I have almost 35 years of litigation experience, none of that experience has been in Minnesota.
Again, sorry, folks, for my mistake.
Meanwhile, as to the substance of the order, it's still a great order; I wish the courts in which I do practice had been using it. It still requires each of the record companies to produce one of its 'officers' or 'managing agents' with decisionmaking 'power'. That means Mr. Oppenheim and the lawyers are not in control.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
3/3/10 12:50 PM UPDATE The question of whether it's a 'standard form' is not necessarily so clear. I have just heard from a few veteran Minnesota federal litigators who say they have never seen such an order in their experience.
Ray Beckerman +5 Insightful
He should have sent them to the Gulag, that would fix things real quick now.
"It is annoying to be honest to no purpose." -- Publius Ovidius Naso
I don't practice in Minn, but I have never seen an order like that from a Texas federal court. Some judges are very active in running settlement conferences, and it would not surprise me for them to want to be very certain that there was no waffling about people not having authority at the settlement conference. But, this order feels like one hacked off judge who is intent on seeing someone very, very senior with each party live and in front of him. In my experience, federal judges are quite capable of delivering world class butt-chewings when they decide you need it. I am happy to say I have only seen, and not been on the receiving end. The order makes perfect sense, if the judge is convinced that the Plaintiffs are jerking around individuals, by effectively threatening them with the sheer cost of the system. Sure looks like the the judge is making sure the Plaintiffs get a taste of their own medicine, by having to send someone with serious authority - in person - to attend the settlement conference.