Supreme Court Case: Columbia Pictures V. Feltner
In 1991, Columbia Pictures terminated an agreement with C. Elvin Feltner, the owner of several television stations. The agreement originally stated that Feltner could broadcast episodes of "Who's The Boss," "Hart to Hart," "T.J. Hooker" and "Silver Spoons", however Feltner was late on payments, so they canceled the contract. 19 months later, Feltner was still broadcasting the shows, even after Columbia Pictures repeatedly told them to stop. Columbia Pictures sued them for copyright infringement, since Feltner no longer had the rights to the shows. In 1993 A district judge granted Columbia (represented by Henry J. Tashman and Eric M. Stahl of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP) their motion of summary judgement. At the bench trial the judge granted Columbia 8.8 million dollars in damages, which is about $20000 for each of the 440 episodes. Feltner took the case to the supreme court on the argument that a jury should decide the amount of damages that need to be paid. The court ruled in Feltner’s favor, saying that the seventh amendment does in fact grant the right to a jury trial in copyriht infringement cases. “During the trial, The irony of it is, maybe -- you may be better off if you lose, because a jury may come in with a bigger award”. This turned out to be correct. At the retrial in 1999, Tashman requested $70000 per episode in awards or 30.8 million, saying that the large amount was necessary to deter future offenses. Instead the jury upped the amount to 31.68 million, ten times the amount Feltner owed Columbia, and three and a half times the amount that the
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The article discussed a dispute between Christopher simmons and a missouri prosecutor and the main question is Whether or not the death penalty is unconstitutional for minors, and whether that decision is for the states or the federal government to
The article discussed a dispute between Christopher simmons and a missouri prosecutor and the main question is Whether or not the death penalty is unconstitutional for minors, and whether that decision is for the states or the federal government to