RIAA Accepts $300 Offer of Judgement In Carolina

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a North Carolina case, Capitol v. Frye, the RIAA has accepted a $300 offer of judgment made by the defendant. This is the first known use, in the RIAA v. Consumer cases, of the formal offer of judgment procedure which provides that if the plaintiff doesn't accept the offer, and doesn't later get a judgment for a larger amount, the plaintiff is responsible for all of the court costs from that point on in the case. The accepted judgment in the Frye case (PDF) also contains an injunction — much more limited than the RIAA's typical 'settlement' injunction (PDF) — under which defendant agreed not to infringe plaintiffs' copyrights."

Re:Sorry for being picky, but...

[stuntpope]

Get thee to Wikipedia!

"The spelling judgment is found in the Authorized Version of the Bible. However, the spelling judgement (with e added) largely replaced judgment in the United Kingdom in a non-legal context, possibly because writing dg without a following e for the /d?/ was seen as an incorrect spelling. In the context of the law, however, judgment is preferred."

Re:thanks for the summary!

[hxnwix]

Someone's getting sued by the RIAA. He said to the RIAA, "look, buddy, I'll give you $300 to go away, and if you wont take it and you can take me to court instead. However, bear in mind that there are two ways things could go from there: the court could say I owe you more than $300, or they could say I don't. If for any reason they say I don't, you have to pay for my lawyer."

The RIAA crunched the numbers and decided to take the $300.

Re:thanks for the summary!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's say Joe sues you for $10,000 for your kids trampling his rose bush.

You think Joe is full of shit, that his mangy rose bush is only worth $100. So you offer to pay him $100 to end the lawsuit.

If Joe accepts, that is the end of it.

If Joe turns you down, then he will have to pay all of your costs (and is some states, attorney fees) from that moment on if when the case goes to trial, he does not win MORE than the $100 you offered.

The basic reasoning is that if someone who injured you offers to pay you what your claim is worth, you should take it. If you don't accept the offer, you should have to pay him for the trouble you cause to HIM by not taking his reasonable offer.

If Joe wins MORE than the $100 you offered, he is in the clear.

It makes people examine exactly what the claim is worth, and gives both sides incentive to offer (and accept) a reasonable offer.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Camael]

Actually, RIAA won. In simple terms her offer was "Okay I'm willing to plead guilty and pay you $300 inclusive of everything" and RIAA accepted. So the award is made against her. It's different from convincing the RIAA to "drop the matter".

Re:Sorry for being picky, but...

[Atmchicago]

We should note that their are other situations where the "j" pronunciation with "dg" is found, such as the English town of Bridgnorth. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bridgnorth [wikipedia.org]) So there are still places in England where "dg" is the correct spelling. This probably stems from earlier times when spelling in English was less consistent and not as standardized.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Knara]

Right, but the important thing is that AFAIK it can't be relied on as precedence like it could be if there was an actual judicial decision in the RIAA's favor.

IANAL

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

I love the way people keep throwing around this word "guilty". Like this is a criminal case. The longer people apply criminal law terminology like "guilty" and "innocent" and "theft" the easier it will be for the copyright owners to get new criminal laws passed. Stop playing their game.

I agree wholeheartedly, QuantumG. I wince every time someone says "guilty" or "innocent".

These are civil cases. The terminology should be "liable" and "not liable".

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

In simple terms her offer was "Okay I'm willing to plead guilty and pay you $300 inclusive of everything" Correct, except for the "plead guilty" part. That's only in criminal cases.

Well, a formal Rule 68 offer of judgment is something different than that. It's kind of a dare. It's saying to the RIAA:

Here's a judgment for $300. I'm throwing $300 on the floor. Either pick it up, or go forward.
I dare you to try to recover more than that.
If you don't recover more than that, you're going to be liable for all of the court costs from this day forward.
If you've got the guts, bring it on.
If you don't, pick up the $300 and get out of my life.

Re:Something Doesn't Compute

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Surely I must be missing something here. What is to stop every North Carolina civil defendant from offering a $1 judgment to the plaintiff? What does the defendant have to lose? It would seem that the worst case for the defendant is that the plaintiff doesn't accept and then the defendant is no better of worse off than he was before. But for the plaintiff, the stakes are huge. What did I miss, here?

Actually, I would not be surprised to see a lot of defendants doing just that.

But there are consequences if the RIAA accepts the offer. There is a judgment against you, which shows up in a credit report, and in view of the judgment you can't claim to be the prevailing party and assert entitlement to attorneys fees.

But for many the Rule 68 offer of judgment will be a useful tool.

Re:ha

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

You would know better than anyone on Slashdot: How many lawyers does the RIAA sic on people in cases like this? Is $500/hr/atty a reasonable estimate of what they're being billed? Running some reasonable-but-very-much-guessed numbers in my head gets me to a cost of around $3,000-4,000 to the RIAA to respond to the Rule 68 offer alone. Then again, they may be acting in a more streamlined fashion than any other corporation with a major litigation strategy, or even using in-house counsel for these suits, for all I know.

I know that they're spending a fortune, and I know that they're using law firms all across the country. In most cases they're using two law firms. They're also using in house counsel to direct the law firms. I don't know the hourly rates. I'll probably have a better idea after the Court issues its attorneys fees decision in Capitol v. Foster [blogspot.com].

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[Anonymous Coward]

Call me a cynic, but I sort of assumed that already happened....

Re:Something Doesn't Compute

[Slashdot Parent]

As far as I can tell, you can be denied employment for a non-sensitive position that doesn't involve finance, regardless of a lack of an criminal history or civil rulings, based entirely on your credit report.

Of course you can. "People With Bad Credit" are not a protected class.

The gov't supposedly has to tell you if you are rejected for employment or a promotion, but somehow I doubt that always happens--as there appears to be limited oversight.

Actually, it is not the government, but the entity who is relying on credit bureau information who is responsible for notifying you if you were denied credit/employment/housing/whatever in whole or in part based on your credit report. The Fair Credit Reporting Act mandates this reporting, and the penalties are pretty harsh, especially in relationship to the ease of this notification.

I am a landlord, and I always notify applicants if I reject based on their credit report. It's just a form letter that I drop in the mail. No biggie.

I recall a university in NC having a position paper stating that credit based hiring may represent a system of discrimination against minorities that is illegal (this is highly likely, but a test case might be hard to find and argue).

I do not know about hiring, but it has been tested over and over that relying on credit bureau information is not discrimination under the federal Fair Housing Act. People with bad credit are not a protected class.

Good luck!

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

a formal Rule 68 offer of judgment is something different than that. It's kind of a dare. It seems like such a powerful tool that it would be almost automatic to offer a small amount. What happens in cases where it isn't done? Are costs typically shared evenly?

Normally the court costs are awarded to the prevailing party.

Re:Summarize this summary

[Anonymous Coward]

It is found in Rule 68 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. http://www.law.cornell.edu/rules/frcp/Rule68.htm [cornell.edu] The legal system favors voluntary resolution of disputes. 90% of cases filed, never reach trial. The idea that you have to pay someone for their expenses when you wast their time unnecessarily is present in several rules. For example, if you "deny" an allegation that is later proven to be true, you have to pay the costs of the person who was "put to the trouble' of having to prove something you should have just admitted.

Re:I'm no lawyer, but

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

If a plaintiff refuses a defendant's offer of judgement and ends up losing at trial, does the plantiff also have to cover the defendant's legal bills? Or is the plaintiff only on the hook for court costs?

Good question.

In a copyright case, the answer is probably yes, since the Copyright Act includes attorneys fees to the prevailing party as part of the costs.