LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Considering the lack of courtroom success that Hollywood studios have had lately, perhaps the best legal strategy is to hide.
Consider Polestar Entertainment, a film production company that has just escaped a $700,000 default judgment for allegedly defrauding a man who invested in a sequel to the 1969 cult fave “Easy Rider.” The company was able to get out of the penalty on the grounds that it didn’t know a trial was going on. A Missouri appeals court has ruled that the court award was a violation of the defendants’ due process rights.
The decision marks the latest strange turn on the road to creating an “Easy Rider” sequel.
The plaintiff in the case was the estate of Al Kerth III, perhaps most infamous in Hollywood for helping relocate the Rams from Los Angeles to St. Louis. In 1999, Kerth invested $125,000 with Polestar, run by Glenn Tobias, for a planned sequel to “Easy Rider.”
Tobias ran into problems and had his assets foreclosed, including rights to the franchise.
Kerth committed suicide in 2002, and in sorting his affairs, lawyers for the estate discovered the agreement. In 2004, the estate filed a lawsuit against Tobias and two of his companies, Polestar and Besdine Management Company, alleging fraud and breach of contract.
Tobias hired a lawyer to represent him, but the counsel withdrew from the case. At the time, Tobias was dealing with other lawsuits in California, Taiwan, Europe and the Bahamas and decided to give priority to those other lawsuits. He didn’t hire a replacement to his Missouri counsel.
Meanwhile, the plaintiff moved to have the case put on the trial docket, and a judge set trial for July 9, 2007. The plaintiff, though, never mailed notice of the trial setting to the defendants. At the trial, the Kerth estate presented its evidence, and the trial court entered a judgment of $188,000 in compensatory damages, $135,360 in pre-judgment interest, and $376,000 in punitive damages.
According to the decision by the Missouri appeals court, reviewing the lower court’s awarded judgment, a year and a half passed before Tobias learned from his attorney in California that a collection proceeding had initiated. He then filed a motion to set aside the verdict. And … he won.
So what happened to that sequel to “Easy Rider”?
The man who seized the assets of Tobias sold the rights to a group that included Philip Pitzer, a lawyer from Ohio who wanted to fulfill his life-long dream of making the sequel. It took some doing on his part.
The film was going to be called “Easy Rider: The Search Continues” and was going to include clips from the original film. According to a story three years ago in the New York Times, the plan went haywire when Pitzer found out they didn’t really acquire rights to the old clips. Pitzer sued in Santa Monica Superior Court, claiming fraud and deceit in the sale of the sequel rights.
Kerth/Tobias failed to make the film (and let’s not forget the “Easy Rider: A.D.” attempt either), but Pitzer was finally able to pull it off. It was called “Easy Rider: The Ride Back” and we can hardly blame anyone for missing it.
Let’s focus on the cricket
Seemingly endless column centimetres and electronic media time has been devoted in the past week or so to the personal dramas confronting Australian cricket vice-captain, Michael Clarke and his now-ex fiancee, Lara Bingle.
Columnists and commentators – both sporting and social – had their say and pronounced their thoughts on how the drama would unfold.
In the end, the matter was settled in a public sense by the issuing of a short statement from Clarke’s management company that pronounced that the pair’s engagement had been called off and the glamour couple was going separate ways.
The media statement ended as most do in these circumstances by asking that the pair’s privacy be respected.
Clarke is due to return to New Zealand in the next 48 hours in preparation for the opening Test in Wellington that starts on Friday.
Cricket Australia and his teammates will rightly do their best to shield him from the media in the short term as he no doubt struggles to acclimatise to his new personal circumstances.
Barring a substantial innings from the heir apparent to the national captaincy there will be no reason for him to face the media at all during the two-Test series.
And should he peel off a century against the Black Caps, the media will be put on notice as to what questions will be allowed before he takes a seat before the cameras and microphones.
In essence, there is perhaps only one thing that may trigger continued coverage of the saga and that will be governed by how the New Zealand team chooses to approach the matter on the field.
The two countries are cut very much from the same cloth and as a result the way they approach sporting contests against one another is along similar lines.
No quarter is asked for and generally none is given.
Two countries that formed an indelible bond in the trenches at Gallipoli abandon their shared commonality once they take to the sporting field.
Whether it be rugby, netball or cricket, the sporting rivalry between the Trans-Tasman rivals is always intense.
Testament to that is the fall-out from the altercation between Mitchell Johnson and Scott Styris early in the one-day series when the Australian quick chose to head-butt the helmeted Kiwi batsman during a mid-pitch confrontation.
For the remainder of the series every move by Johnson on the field was met with a chorus of boos and jeers from the parochial fans.
Infamously in the early 1990s, a story did the rounds for several years that involved the alleged treatment meted out to New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns by the Australian slips cordon when he arrived at the crease for his first innings on a Test tour of Australia.
Cairns, who had recently lost his sister in a tragic train crash, was said to have been the target of “choo-choo” comments.
Rightly, the response of anyone who got wind of the story was one of disgust.
In his autobiography following his retirement, Steve Waugh flatly denied any such comments had ever been made.
But it was not until Cairns himself penned in his memoir that the story was indeed apocryphal that the innuendo was finally put to rest.
Australians and New Zealanders have never been backward in coming forward when the opportunity has existed to sledge each other on the field.
The Tests to be played over the next fortnight will no doubt feature plenty of pointed barbs aimed at unsettling the opponent.
The ultimate test will be whether anyone is willing to play the personal card with regard to Clarke and his off-field tribulations.
One would hope that the line is not crossed and that such a tactic is not employed but in the heat of battle decisions that are later regretted are often made.
Kiwi skipper, Daniel Vettori is regarded in cricket circles as one of the game’s senior statesman and it would not surprise if he has already issued an edict to his charges.
Clarke’s demeanour at the crease will be closely scrutinised in the next two weeks.
Here’s hoping that we don’t see a repeat of the 2003 incident in the Caribbean between Glenn McGrath and Ramnaresh Sarwan in which the former believed he had heard a comment that related to his wife who was battling cancer at the time.
On that occasion, it turned out that McGrath had in fact misinterpreted what had been said.
But the event indicates what can ensue when a fragile mind is in a pressure situation.
Let’s hope it’s the cricket that captures the headlines during this Trans-Tasman Trophy encounter for in recent times the deeds in the middle have played second fiddle to events off it.