In what appears to be a cyclical recurrence of post-success litigation, Snapchat is being sued by a man from South Carolina named Frank Reginald Brown IV, who claims that he originally came up with the idea for the ephemeral picture messaging app.
"They're being paid by the success of their litigation.
But in the classic music showbusiness model, huge success begat ruinous litigation.
"The N.F.L. players have had some success with antitrust litigation strategy," said an attorney familiar with labor relations and sports, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he does not have direct knowledge of the union's plans.
The disagreement has been settled out of court, with Harvey Weinstein saying "I want to personally congratulate Jeff Zucker and NBCU on their success in the litigation and thank Jeff for resolving this in a professional manner".
The website for Gibson Dunn, where he is a partner, boasts that, among other notable litigation successes, Walden got a multinational chemical company's department of justice fine reduced by $70m; helped a global financial services firm dodge a New York stock exchange investigation; and got an energy company off the hook of a criminal investigation for insider dealing.
"At a time where market consolidation is swallowing up more independent interests, delivering even more power into the hands of the largest major labels, adding this settlement to the growing list of litigation successes achieved by Merlin on behalf of its members is gratifying," Charles Caldas, Merlin CEO, said in a statement.
The bill removes the possibility of recovering success fees from all litigation (making it harder for public interest lawyers to bring highly risky cases of this type without legal aid) but more significantly, takes away the possibility of recovering insurance premiums from all litigation, replacing this with a limited form of cost protection for personal injury cases only.
On a $500,000 claim, at a 75% probability of success, less $100,000 in litigation costs, the estimated net return on going to trial is $275,000.
League rules that punished players for playing in rival football leagues resulted in litigation; the success of such lawsuits impelled the NFL to negotiate some work rules and minimum payments with the NFLPA.
They, like Mayor Bloomberg, invoked other long public health battles, like those over tobacco and motor vehicle fatalities, to argue that the ruling was a temporary roadblock in a larger war on obesity that would probably take decades, and a lot of litigation, before seeing success.
