Judge Orders Record Company Execs To Duluth 231
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."
Re:IANAL.. (Score:5, Informative)
My guess is that Oppenheim's barred from negotiations.
He wouldn't be barred from attending. He just won't be in control, as he is normally permitted to be.
Re:My heart leaped (Score:5, Informative)
As a city, I like it.
Kind of like San Francisco with the severe elevation changes, but if it was transferred to the frozen tundra for half the year.
The lake is pretty and Engers tower is worth visiting if you're ever in the area.
Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
hmmm - after reading the order... it sounds like if they probably do NOT want to skip this in any way shape or form...
That is correct. They are not going to 'skip' this. They will probably try to avoid it, by getting the best settlement they can get in advance of the hearing... but if they don't settle, they will show, and I can't imagine them disobeying any aspect of the order.
Re:Makes sense (Score:5, Informative)
How they got away with this before is beyond me.
It's beyond me too. In Brooklyn several years ago the Magistrate Judge ordered the "principals" of the record companies to attend an in-person settlement conference. When the day came, however, the only person who showed was Matthew Oppenheim, who is not even an employee of any of those companies. If I was the judge I would have thrown their case out, due to their flagrant disobedience of his order. Instead, the judge said "okay" and said he was accepting Oppenheim as a "principal" of all of the companies, and the judge claimed that Oppenheim was the only person in the world who had authority to settle on behalf of all 4 companies. Go figure.
Re:IAAL (I am a Lawyer) (Score:5, Informative)
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....
It certainly was! If you've not heard of NewYorkCountryLawyer then you're definitely new here!
This one man has done more than anyone else to bring to the public's attention what the MAFIAA have beeen up to for the past few years - check out his blog at http://recordingindustryvspeople.blogspot.com/ for more details.
Ray - keep up the good work, it looks like we're heading for the endgame now....
Re:If only... (Score:5, Informative)
Out of a morbid sense of curiosity, what happens if they don't follow it to the letter?
It would never happen, but if it were to happen, the judge would throw the case out and grant the defendant her attorneys fees and costs.
Re:My heart leaped (Score:1, Informative)
Duluth is a nice town actually. Not that it matters here - the notice says they have to go to Minneapolis.
Not Duluth (Score:1, Informative)
Duluth isn't Minneapolis. Just saying...
Duluth != Minneapolis (Score:3, Informative)
Looks to me like the record company execs are ordered to go to the courthouse in downtown Minneapolis, not Duluth.
The non-lawyers strike again.... (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:My heart leaped (Score:5, Informative)
You realize that what is required of a police officer is completely different in a civil suit right?
The restrictions on police and government typically only apply to criminal cases. This suit and all of the file sharing P2P RIAA suites so far have been civil suits. They are still bound by rules but not near as stringent as there would be for criminal prosecution.
Entrapment can occur when the government or one or more of it's officers (private people working on their behalf can be officers too), entice and convince someone to do something illegal that they wouldn't ordinarily do. When citizens do that, it sort of becomes conspiracy instead of entrapment. Instead of just one person breaking the law, someone conspired to get another person to break the law. It doesn't get you out of trouble like if you were able to prove entrapment. There are also defenses like "necessity" that can get you out of trouble. Necessity is more or less the defense that the necessity of the situation left only the options of breaking the laws to escape the circumstances with your life or someone else. Imagine your in prison and the guards are murdering everyone and you escape, You wouldn't get busted for the escape charge. On the other hand, suppose the prison was run in a way that the living conditions was so deplorable that you feared for you life or health, it's a little harder to prove but you could escape punishment there too. Imagine someone jumped in front of you and a relative pointing a gun at both of you. He then tells you he will kill your mom, girlfriend or whoever is with you in 15 minutes if you don't take an unloaded gun into a bank and rob it then give him the money. If you could prove those conditions, you would have acted out of "necessity" and would likely escape punishment.
Anyways, that's getting way off point. The government is held to a different standard then private people, and criminal cases are held differently then civil cases. Entrapment just won't fit with RIAA and civil lawsuits.
Re:Unfortunately I doubt it (Score:4, Informative)
Many times it's not just the CEO that technically holds the purse strings. The CFO, Comptroller, or other high ranking management may be able to also authorize a settlement without further authorization. Temporary authorization could also be granted if a person does not regularly have authorization, but was given so just for this case.
I know this judge (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Unfortunately I doubt it (Score:1, Informative)
I think the judge is trying to figure out how what is basically a 2 cd set worth about 20 retail is worth a quart million dollars. The 'harm' would have been that each song was downloaded nearly 10000 times each.
Correction: It Was A Standard Form (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:The hearing is in Minneapolis, not Duluth (Score:4, Informative)
Re:My heart leaped (Score:4, Informative)
Ok, let's look at the rules for entrapment [lectlaw.com].
WRT RIAA, of course, it fails to meet the "officer of the law" part. That said, I could see someone attempting it anyway by putting forth a theory that the RIAA became a law unto themselves, and thus were obviously officers of their law. If I were on that jury, I probably could be convinced that the RIAA was acting that way.
Now I'm not so sure if it's standard or not (Score:5, Informative)