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."

IANAL, but the legalese translation is:

[Jadware]

Her attorney's didn't enter a plea (or something to that effect), RIAA 'won' by default, and now the judge nullified that default behavior.

Re:layer-ease

[Joren]

Quoth Wikipedia [wikipedia.org]:

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:RIAA sucks! Here's why:

[Anonymous Coward]

Please mod this guy down below -1. I on't need to see this ****

Re:Shoudn't really be any question

[Lumpy]

http://www.araggroup.com/ [araggroup.com] is what I use. It's awesome and Has paid 100% for a divorce, a lawsuit against a business on the east cost that sent me a box of junk instead of what I paid for, as well as other smaller legal issues like getting me off of a traffic ticket that was going to be expensive.

you have a premium you pay and a "copay" depending on the problem, you may have a max and then pay afterwards but most of the time it covers a bulk of the lawsuit. (after X $$$ they cover 80%)

or type in google

"legal insurance" to get a bigger list.

Re:Shoudn't really be any question

[Dambiel]

I agree that $45/month is a steal to have what amounts to a lawyer on retainer, especially if you have considerable assets to protect.

But, the middle class earning $55k to $170k? That seems high. Earning $170k puts you around the 95th percentile for household income, squarely in the upper class. $55k is about the 60th percentile, and I'm sure you don't mean to say that 60% of the U.S. is poor.

Households in the middle quintile have incomes between $36,000 and $57,657. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_ the_United_States [wikipedia.org])

Re:Shoudn't really be any question

[UserChrisCanter4]

But this is for the whole US, and buying power varies greatly. $170K in Kansas and $170K in NYC are very, very different. Especially when you start considering that progressive taxes further reduce the $170K vs. $55K, and that higher cost of living areas (NYC, SoCal, Chicago, etc.) often have higher taxes to go along with the higher cost of living.

The problem is that grouping the whole US ignores the cost of living in each area.

For comparison: In Houston, teachers make about $42K to start in most of the districts. A 2000 sq. ft. starter home in the 'burbs runs about $130K. Last time I checked, several California districts were paying $70K to start, but the median home in CA is $550K. This is on top of the higher total cost of living (food, gasoline, taxes, etc.) It is no trouble to get on the property ladder with $55K in some parts of the country, and virtually impossible in others. $170K might seem to be pushing the definition, but it would definitely fall squarely in the middle class in some places.

Re:Shoudn't really be any question

[sumdumass]

I had this for tickets once in the early 90s. Not that exact company but the lawyer that showed up for me plead me guilty and got the judge to waive court costs. The idea was to keep the points off my license, not skip court costs, I could have done that by just paying the ticket.

So I guess my point is, Look around at see what others say about it too. Get some recommendations and endorsements if you can that aren't linked to from their site. I dunno if what happened to me was because of something I did or what but I wasn't happy with it. Especially since I had payed $30 or so a month on it for a little over two years before it happened.

As an attorney

[hawk]

I'm skeptical.

When I was in general practice, I got pitched by these things all the time, and never found one that was worth *my* end of things. I'm not denying that one could be made, but every one I saw had unbelievably low rates for what I would be paid--to the point that it didn't cover my overhead costs!

OTOH, the $45/month is higher than the premiums I used to see, so maybe it can cover a bit more.

hawk, esq