Attorney, Beverly Hills, CA 90210, Los Angeles, CA, Neville L. Johnson, Douglas L. Johnson, Nicholas A. Kurtz, Mathias D. Maciejewski, business law, business litigation, contingency litigation, consumer class action, tortious disputes, contractual disputes, llegal news gathering tactics, surreptitious news reporting, entertainment law, music law, entertainment litigation, music royalties, royalties copyrighted music, composer rights, songwriters rights, intellectual property law, intellectual property, intellectual property rights, copyright law, copyright infringement, trademark infringement, patent, trademark law, tradename, trade secrets, multimedia law, film/tv law, news media law, media litigation, media law, publishing law, television law, motion pictures law, theatre law, visual arts law, cable tv law, sports law, privacy, privacy law, invasion of privacy, defamation, libel, slander, Douglas Johnson, Super Lawyers Rising Star 2006, Neville Johnson, Trial Lawyer of the Year 2005, ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, Songwriters Guild of America, SGA, Nashville Songwriters Association International, NSAI, performance rights organizations, PRO, civil rights, civil rights litigation, employment discrimination, sexual harassment, First Amendment, First Amendment Attorney, Constitutional Law, jjllplaw.com, 11-16-08, 09-15-08, 06-12-08, 05-20-08, 04-07-08, 11-05-07, 09-21-07, 08-01-07
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
News and Media - November / December 2008 |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| All Jack Klugman wanted was access to his decades-old "Quincy
M.E." contract, which had been misplaced over the years. And on Wednesday, that's
exactly what a Los Angeles judge gave him. In a one-page tentative order, Judge Gregory Alarcon ruled that the show's producer, NBC Universal, should provide Klugman access to the contracts, the same ones NBC offered to him six months ago. The actor sued NBC in March, seeking a court order allowing access to the contracts. According to the lawsuit, Klugman's attorney, Neville Johnson, asked NBC lawyers in July for copies of the contract after NBC reported the series "accumulated over $66 million in net losses." The request was the first step in conducting an audit to verify NBC's reports. The studio's lawyers responded that they were unable to send the contract but that Johnson could view the 30-year-old documents as long as no copies or notes were made. NBC sources said copies initially were not allowed because some of the papers involving the series contained confidential information. The judge's ruling clears up whether Klugman can get access to those papers. "Because the defendants offered to provide plaintiffs with access to the contract they seek, the court finds good cause to order defendants to provide that access again and to permit the copying of the documents for purposes of judicial economy and to promote the ends of justice in an effort to resolve the dispute," Alarcon wrote in his tentative ruling. NBC has 15 days to provide Klugman's lawyer with the contracts. |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Award-winning actor Jack Klugman, best known as Dr.Quincy M.E. on the
television show "Quincy M.E.," claims NBC may still owe him profits from his
work on the late-1970s series, but refuses to provide a copy of his contract. In his lawsuit against the broadcast company, Klugman claims that he and co-plaintiff Sweater Productions Inc. signed a deal in 1976 with NBC, which agreed to pay Klugman 25 percent of all net profits from the show for playing the lead role. The agreement stipulated that NBC would provide proper accounting of the profits, and that Klugman and Sweater Productions could audit the records in the event of a dispute, the lawsuit claims. Klugman says NBC may have been shortchanging him, "as the series may have produced more revenue than expenses incurred, thus generating net profits," but that he will never know until NBC produces a copy of the contract. In a letter denying the request for a contract, lawyers for NBC stated that "it is NBC Universal's policy not to provide copies of talent contracts or other confidential documents." Plaintiffs demand a declaration of their legal rights, production of the contract and legal fees. -N.S. |
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
| Causes of action: Unlawfull wiretapping; unlawfull eavesdropping; common
law intrusion; constitional invasion of privacy; negligence; negligent supervision Filing
counsel: Douglas Johnson, Neville Johnson and Nicholas Kurtz of
Johnson & Johnson (Beverly Hill, Calif.) |
|||||||||||
News and Media - March / April 2008 |
|
|
|
One "Rings" penalty to rule them all By Matthew Belloni October 4, 2007 |
" ... director Peter Jackson and New Line Cinema over profits from Lord of the Rings ... a rare $125,000 sanction against the studio for failing to turn over potential evidence Jackson says could help him prove that accounting tricks cheated him out of tens of millions in profits. " ... For a complex entertainment case, where lawyer gamesmanship over access to documents and witnesses is fairly common, Hillman's language and the amount of the penalty are striking. "It's almost unheard of," says litigator Neville Johnson, who frequently tangles with studios. "You rarely see sanctions, and you certainly don't see sanctions that high." |
![]() Beaver' actor sues SAG September 19, 2007 Click here |
Ken Osmond sues Screen Actors Guild
(SAG) for share of $8 million in foreign residuals, September 2007 "The suit echoes nearly identical proposed class-action suits filed during the past two years by Osmond's attorney, Neville Johnson, against the DGA and WGA. ..." |
Eddie Haskell Sues Screen Actors Guild Sepetmber 19th 2007 Click here |
" ... He says that SAG has collected more than $8 million from
foreign residuals but has not shared that money with SAG members and non-members. Osmond's
attorney has also filed suits against the Directors Guild and the Writers Guild over the
past few years. It could be a class-action suit if others join in. Osmond says that SAG
will not show him their books. ..." Tags: directors guild, eddie haskell, jerry mathers, JerryMathers, ken osmond, leave it to beaver, sag, screen actors guild, ScreenActorsGuild, tony dow, writers guild |
![]() Click here |
Google Blog Search: "Ken Osmond" 400+ Results for "Ken Osmond" |
A Conversation with Attorney Neville Johnson By Mark Holden Click here |
Composers royalty rights, PRO ASCAP BMI SESAC "The first thing that composers should do is get organized. And it's a terribly important time right now because of all the legislation that is imminent and necessary because of Internet delivery." "Composers should be rallying and asking to be paid for all sales of audiovisual product no matter where they're sold." "And the legislators are the key." |
|
Click here |
![]() |
Douglas L. Johnson named Southern California 2006 Rising Star by SuperLawyers.com |
|
|||||||||||||
Investigative Techniques Should Not Break the law By Neville Johnson Click here |
"TV journalists who use deceits are often deluded into thinking that their tactics are somehow worthy or justified. They are wrong ..." "You don't break the law to prove wrongdoing." "I don't want or expect investigative journalists to pull their punches, just make sure they are above the belt." |
By Neville Johnson (multiple authors) Click here |
Establishing Constitutional Malice for Defamation and
Privacy / False Light Claims when Hidden Cameras and Deception are Used by the Newsgather (long page with 649 footnotes - requires 1 minute to load) |
![]() Click here |
MARK SANDERS, Plaintiff and Appellant, v. AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES, INC., et. al, Defendants and Appellants. NARAS F. KERSIS Plaintiff, v. CAPITAL CITIES/ABC, INC., et. al, Defendants. "ABC's Stacy Lescht secretly videotaped these conversations with a "hat cam," i.e., a small camera hidden in her hat; a microphone attached to her brassiere captured sound as well. ..." COUNSEL Johnson & Rishwain, Neville L. Johnson, Brian A. Rishwain; and David A. Elder for Plaintiff and Appellant. |
![]() |
Click Here | |
![]() |
Directors Guild of America www.dga.org |
|
![]() |
Screen Actors Guild www.sag.org |
|
![]() |
Writers Guild of America www.wga.org |
|
![]() |
Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers www.amptp.org |
![]()