For the last year, the spotlight has been on Hollywood’s unpaid interns demanding payment for their work. Although the issue has existed for years, a lawsuit brought by a pair of unpaid interns against Fox Searchlight sparked subsequent lawsuits against industry giants like NBCUniversal, Marvel, and Warner Music Group. This explosion of lawsuits has set the stage for public inquiry into why unpaid interns are denied so many legal protections, including legal recourse for sexual harassment. The case of Lihuan Wang has provided a close-up of this issue, inspiring recent changes in legislation that will hopefully edit sexual harassment from the script of Hollywood internships. - Read more...
Another vertical integration lawsuit has risen to life. Frank Darabont, the writer-director-producer of the most watched show on all of television, The Walking Dead, is in court, facing off against American Movie Classics (AMC), the network that broadcasts the hit zombie apocalypse show. The Walking Dead lawsuit is the latest in a long line of “vertical integration” cases in Hollywood that arise when a TV show broadcaster also produces the show via an affiliated entity. The broadcaster pays a license fee to the production studio, which is then shared with talent. The license fees are supposed to be negotiated between broadcasters and producers to reflect the fair market value of a given series. - Read more...
In this case, the women are the referees, and they just booked FIFA with a red card. For years, the soccer federation, Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), has dealt with allegations of bribery, vote-rigging, and corruption. This October, FIFA faces a new allegation: gender discrimination.
On the heels of the successful 2014 Men’s World Cup, FIFA began implementing plans for the tournament’s counterpart: the 2015 Women’s World Cup in Ontario, Canada. For example, this autumn, FIFA announced that in the 2015 tournament, female players will play on turf instead of grass.
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![A Potential Contract Sweetener: Rewarding Good Behavior]( "A Potential Contract Sweetener: Rewarding Good Behavior")
The Dallas Cowboys and owner Jerry Jones breathed a collective sigh of relief this past week when a state judge ruled that a lawsuit brought against Jones by Jana Weckerly, a former stripper, was barred by the statute of limitations.
Ms. Weckerly brought the suit against Jones in September, alleging that Jones had sexually assaulted her in 2009 and seeking over $1M in damages. She later made an amendment claiming that Jones and his attorneys had paid her over the past four years for her to keep her silence. In addition to arguing that the statute of limitations barred the suit, counsel for Jones and the Cowboys denied Ms. Weckerly’s allegations and described the suit as an attempt to extort Jones. Counsel also moved for sanctions against Ms. Weckerly for filing what they described as a “frivolous pleading for the purpose of harassment.”
Sexual misconduct charges are not uncommon in professional sports. The dismissal of the Jerry Jones lawsuit conjures memories of similar suits against Kobe Bryant, Ben Roethlisberger, and more recently, Colin Kaepernick. Charges against Bryant, Roethlisberger, and Kaepernick were ultimately dropped, but the accusations left dark shadows on otherwise illustrious careers. - Read more...
