Litigation

In a rare win for a plaintiff alleging employment discrimination, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that a woman can bring a harassment claim for language not referring specifically to her.

This article surveys some of the ways that courts have approached the issues of privilege and work product protection for insurer claim files.

The Appellate Court of Illinois decided that a license to use the trademark 'March Madness' 'to advertise, promote, and sell publications, videos, and media broadcasts' included the right to deliver on-demand video content to mobile wireless devices.

Artist Consultant/Unfair-Competition Claim
Insurance/Intra-Band Litigation
Royalty Complaint/Ringtone and Download Licenses
TV-Affiliation Agreements/Promotional Payments

CHARACTER RIGHTS/COPYRIGHT TERMINATION
FILM PRODUCTION/COPYRIGHT CLAIMS
FILM PRODUCTION/RIGHT-OF-PUBLICITY
RIGHTS IN BAND NAMES/TRADEMARK CLAIMS

A founding partner of one of L.A.'s few remaining litigation boutiques has jumped to Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton's Century City office. Entertainment litigator James Curry took his name off the door of White O'Connor Curry, a Century City firm that spun off of what is now Christensen, Glaser, Fink, Jacobs, Weil & Shapiro in an acrimonious split more than a decade ago.

A robust local film industry has kept American films on the margins in India. Foreign films account for only 3% of the market in India, compared to European countries, where American movies account for between 70% and 95% of films shown. So if the United States wants to make a point about film piracy in India, it needs to show Indians that piracy hits the market for their own films, not just those of foreign companies.

When their 15 minutes of fame came, two Santa Barbara County prosecutors didn't shy away ' one authored a book based loosely on a rape case she was handling and the other consulted on a movie about an alleged killer he was trying to bring to justice. But their foray into the entertainment world went awry in October 2006 when a state appellate panel threw both prosecutors off their cases. Joyce Dudley's novel, 'Intoxicating Agent,' hewed far too close to her real-world rape case, the court held, while Ronald Zonen shouldn't have allowed producers of the movie 'Alpha Dog' access to highly sensitive files in his sensational death-penalty case. As a result, the court ruled, keeping the prosecutors on the cases would deny both criminal defendants a fair trial.