What does the Seventh Amendment say once more?
If James Madison were alive, the American founding father might probably have a robust view on whether the creators, writers and producers of Home Improvement are entitled to have a jury pay attention their claims of being denied a truthful percentage of internet earnings earned by the collection. After all, Madison authored the Seventh Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which gives the proper to jury trials indefinite forms of civil suits. In doing so, Madison stood as much as Federalists like Alexander Hamilton and John Adams worried approximately juries being overly sympathetic to borrowers at some stage in the post-colonial rule where the gathering of taxes was wished.
This would possibly all sound like historical records. However, echoes of the late 18th Century debate are gambling out as a 2013 earnings lawsuit in opposition to Disney finally receives toward trial.
Wind Dancer Production Group and writer-manufacturers Matt Williams, Carmen Finestra, Tam O’Shanter and David McFadzean are suing with the allegation that they have got been cheated from a display starring Tim Allen that has generated $1.5 billion for Disney. The case has moved slowly thanks to an “incontestability” clause in the contract that required an objection within a particular time frame to profit participation statements. In a huge decision that bolstered many “Hollywood accounting” cases, a California appeals court docket in 2017 revived the lawsuit with word that it became a triable problem as to whether or not Disney turned into averted from maintaining the incontestability clause due to such alleged behaviour as delaying audits to save you well-timed objection.
The case is now on the summary adjudication segment, and it’s viable that Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Amy Hogue may additionally resolve the entirety herself faster in place of later. Otherwise, the plaintiffs can also head to trial — presently scheduled to start on June three — with claims that encompass Disney breaching a written agreement by way of licensing the collection in syndication in New York for nothing, packaging the collection after which failing to allocate reasonable license charges, improperly charging a forty% distribution charge on fundamental cable sales and improperly treating subscription video-on-demand sales.
In court docket papers this week, the plaintiffs ultimately diagnosed a damages goal.
“Plaintiffs’ damages are in extra of $forty million, without interest,” write lawyers at Robins Kaplan. “With admiring to Plaintiffs’ accounting declare, it’s miles essential to be aware that when Plaintiffs filed their lawsuits, many of Plaintiffs’ audit claims were unquantified because Defendants refused to offer files and facts to Plaintiffs’ auditors… Now, but, as a result of documents and facts received seeing that they filed suit and for the duration of discovery, Plaintiffs had been capable of quantifying the audit claims and intend to offer evidence at the trial of Plaintiffs’ damages.”
That might be a huge passage.
Although the Seventh Amendment guarantees jury trials in civil fits, it’s one of the important final amendments now not “integrated” that allows you to apply to states. Maybe the Supreme Court will someday address a change, but until then, Disney is free to argue in nation courtroom that as a count number of equity in place of a remember of law, a jury needn’t be convened. What’s the distinction? An equitable declare frequently refers to performance with remedies that include injunctions, at the same time as felony claims often call for financial damages. The distinction, however, isn’t always constantly clean and has been the supply of significant fights. Going again to the days of Hamilton and Madison, many Anti-Federalists aimed to keep away from as a whole lot as viable the machine of fairness commonly utilized by English Courts. And for a reason that then, plaintiffs commonly want to be in kingdom court because judges and juries are regarded as greater plaintiff-friendly, but in doing so, they regularly should struggle with that fairness problem which can deny them a jury.
James Madison might not care for Disney’s argument.
“The gist of these consolidated cases is equitable, and ought to be tried to the bench,” writes O’Melveny lawyer Daniel Petrocelli. “As the first actual paragraphs of Plaintiffs’ lawsuits make clear, the final trouble in those cases is whether or not Disney ‘failed to correctly account to and pay Plaintiffs for their percentage of income’ from the Series. Indeed, Plaintiffs with no trouble concede that their claims cannot be adjudicated absent an accounting and that an ‘accounting is required to decide the number of revenues derived from the distribution and exploitation of the Series if you want to confirm Plaintiffs’ share of such revenues.”
Au contraire, responds the opposite aspect.
“The essential inquiries to be determined in these instances are what are the phrases of the events’ agreements, did Defendants breach those phrases, and what are the Plaintiffs’ damages,” states the plaintiffs’ short. “These are legal, no longer equitable, issues, and deliver Plaintiffs the proper to a jury trial.”
The Home Improvement creators say they have got now been able to quantify audit claims and have professionals equipped to testify approximately contractual interpretation.
Disney is “putting the cart earlier than the horse,” maintains the plaintiffs. “Resolution of the settlement questions dictate whether or not accounting is necessary, no longer the alternative manner around… Plaintiffs will be looking for a sum certain at trial and do not expect wanting an accounting. To the quantity an accounting can be needed, it can’t even be viable until after the decision of the breach of agreement claims.”
