Sex and Attorney’s Fees. Tom Kelley Studios, whose founder photographed the then 22-year-old Marilyn Monroe while she was laying nude on red velvet in May 1949, waged federal court litigation against Marilyn Monroe’s estate and CMG Worldwide, Inc, the estate’s licensing agent, over who has the publicity and distribution rights to the actress’ famed […]
In our October 19, 2009 post, we reported on the $20,000 sanctions award imposed against Orly Taitz by U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land in one of the “birther” cases. We can now report that the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the sanctions order, finding the arguments on appeal to be “unpersuasive” in
Even though facing a budget shortfall of more than $116 million, the City of San Jose did not get good news in litigation with COMPAC, the San Jose Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce’s political action committee, over the constitutionality of the City’s $250 limit on individual contributions in raising money for campaign mailers (known
Goodman Forecast to Curtain Attorney’s Fees In a March 15, 2010 article “Curtailing Attorneys’ Fees” by Harry I. Price (a Los Altos real estate attorney) published in The Recorder, Mr. Price predicts that Goodman v. Lozano—a recent California Supreme Court decision examined in our February 5, 2010 post—“will change how litigants sift and
As reported by Fred Swegles in “Law on fees could help or hurt San Clemente” (an article published in the March 12, 2010 The Orange County Register), San Clemente, CA is looking to update a local law to force the losing party in a code enforcement action to pay attorney’s fees. Based on
Co-contributor Mike Has A Matthew Bender Post on New Statutes Relating to Same. The California Attorney General and California State Bar are cracking down on attorneys who collect advance fees for residential loan modification services. The California Bar Journal is replete with several articles and announcements in the last few editions indicating that the
$1.25 Billion Settlement Yields Potential Fee Recovery of 4 to 7 % The U.S. Government announced a tentative $1.25 billion ($1,250,000,000) settlement to resolve a racial discrimination action by black farmers who were denied access to USDA loan programs and denied participation in an earlier class action settlement. Although still subject to congressional authorization
School District Would Hand the Property Back. To show you how expensive modern litigation happens to be, take the case of the Natomas Unified School District. (Natomas is one of the remaining undeveloped communities in the northwest Sacramento, CA area.) A grand jury report in May 2009 alleged that the District paid
Nonconflicted Attorneys Get Award of Fees; Conflicted Attorneys Do Receive Reimbursement of Over $1.2 Million in Expenses. In our April 26, 2009 post, we reported on Rodriguez v. West Publishing Co., 563 F.3d 948 (9th Cir. 2009), where class representative incentive agreements creating conflicts of interests required reconsideration of fee awards to both
As reported by Sean Emery in “Irvine legal fees in development fight run $1.3 million” (available for reading in the February 6, 2010 edition of The Orange County Register), the City of Irvine has incurred about $1.3 million in various legal fights over the Irvine Business Complex “vision plan”—an urban revitalization project near the
