Lawsuit Over Charlie Sheen's "Anger Management" Settled

Newsflash from your Hollywood Attorney:

 

In April, 2012, Shuman and his Blue Star Entertainment alleged in a lawsuit they developed the property "under the false promise of receiving significant backend ownership in, and producer credit and fees on, the show" but Roth's Revolution Studios has "refused to honor its written producer agreement" with Shuman and his company. The motivation, according to amended claims, was to satisfy Sheen's significant backend ownership demands.

According to papers filed on Friday in L.A. Superior Court, the parties have reached a conditional settlement to resolve the dispute. No terms were released, and the attorneys weren't immediately available to comment. According to a source, the parties have been in discussion for months over how much ownership to give Shuman and what to do about the credit situation. If the settlement holds, it will cut short a trial that was scheduled for next April.

Shuman had worked with Roth since 2008 after signing a consulting deal. The plaintiff said he had worked with the former Disney and Fox studio chief to analyze the company's film library for properties that could be developed into remakes and sequels and TV shows.

Together, they identified Anger Management, the 2003 film produced by Revolution that starred Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson.

Shuman was interested in playing a big role in adapting Anger Management for television. Previously, he had helped Roth's company develop the film Are We There Yet? into a successful syndicated series for TBS, but had become upset over his compensation. Roth allegedly said he would "make it up to" Shuman by giving him significant backend compensation on the next property he helped develop into a series.

Anger Management was to be that vehicle, said the plaintiff.

Schuman says his work included developing the characters, meeting with potential actors like Cedric the Entertainer, and pitching agents and cable executives on the TV syndication structure known as the "Tyler Perry Model," wherein 10 episodes of a show are produced and given to a network for free, but if they generate good ratings, the buyer agrees to purchase another 90 episodes.

Then, Roth stopped communicating with Shuman.

As detailed in a counterclaim brought by Roth, Shuman was later provided notice that his consulting agreement was being terminated.

Shuman, though, said he and colleague William Sherak signed written producer deals in May 2010 that acknowledged their role in the project and that Revolution had breached a contract by sidelining him.

Roth also defended himself by arguing that the Anger Management series that would have starred Cedric the Entertainer was different from the realized Anger Management series starring Charlie Sheen. Roth was assisted by the colorful star who submitted a declaration about influencing the shape of the series. Sheen spoke about "the irony of my portraying an anger management therapist" and stated, "At no time during any of these meetings do I recall anyone mentioning the names Jason Shuman, William Sherak or Blue Star."

In an amended complaint, Shuman added fraud charges that said that Roth's company had purposely hid Sheen's involvement.
                              "Knowing they would lose significant backend ownership to Sheen, Defendants kept Plaintiffs from knowing anything about Sheen's involvement," said Shuman's papers. "If the Defendants lost backend ownership in the Anger Management television series to Sheen and his producing team, they had to make up for the loss by not honoring their contractual obligations to Plaintiffs. Indeed, once Charlie Sheen came onboard and the Defendants lost a significant portion of their backend ownership in the Anger Management television series, Defendants informed Plaintiffs that they were not honoring their contractual obligations to them."

That charge took a hit this summer. when Patricia Guerrero said that Shuman hadn't sufficiently supported claims of negligent misrepresentation and fraud. But the judge granted the plaintiff leave to amend, and the ruling is unlikely to have played a big role in the settlement. The parties have been in mediation for months, and any settlement was further complicated by the need to get other third parties like Lionsgate (another producer on the show) on board.

Read More... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/joe-roth-settles-lawsuit-charlie-585596

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Marty Singer Sending Legal Threats, California Appeals Court Singer Crossed the Line to be an "Extortion" Attempt

Singer sent the letter July 25, 2011, on behalf of Top Chef Canada judge Shereene Arazm to Big Brother contestant and VH1 Famous Food host Mike Malin.

Arazm and Malin were business partners in a restaurant group until Arazm said he discovered that Malin had embezzled and mismanaged more than $1 million in assets. In his letter, Singer demanded a full forensic accounting and the return of funds. He attached a draft of a lawsuit that he said would be filed in court if the dispute wasn't resolved. Perhaps most intimidating was the part of the letter that stated, "I have deliberately left blank spaces in portions of the complaint dealing with your using company resources to arrange sexual liaisons with ------------------.  When the complaint is filed with the Los Angeles Superior Court, there will be no blanks in the pleading.”

Read Letter Here.... http://www.scribd.com/doc/141257673/Arazm-v-Malin-Malin-Letter

 "The allegations of sexual misconduct contained in the demand letter in this case are very tangential," wrote Los Angeles judge Mary Strobel, adding that the "letter is best read as extortion as a matter of law [because] [i]t threatens to reveal the names of sexual partners."

On Thursday, Singer will take his case on appeal — and he's being supported by several lawyer associations as well as the ACLU. At stake might be how aggressive Hollywood attorneys can be in messages to would-be defendants. Singer's own attorney Jeremy Rosen tells THR, "We remain confident in prevailing in this litigation because, under the trial court’s analysis, virtually all pre-litigation demand letters routinely sent by attorneys throughout the state would constitute extortion."

Singer believes that the judge should have stricken Malin's claim as an impingement of his client's First Amendment rights. The reason why the claim survived an anti-SLAPP challenge was because the judge determined that the pre-litigation communication was not protected due to it falling into an exception for illegal activity.

On appeal, Singer challenges this assessment.

Rosen tells California's 2nd Appellate District that in Flatley v. Mauro, the California Supreme Court articulated a "narrow exception" to the anti-SLAPP statute in instances where "either the defendant concedes, or the evidence conclusively establishes, that the assertedly protected speech or petition activity was illegal as a matter of law."

According to Singer's appellate brief, "Indeed, the actual evidence demonstrates that the demand letter was not the type of rare and highly egregious letter that could satisfy the narrow definition of extortion. As an initial matter, the demand letter simply stated the factual bases of the anticipated lawsuit detailing the wide range of financial wrongdoing Malin engaged in, including using restaurant group assets to pay his sexual partners."

The appeal brief contains many other arguments and can be read in full here.... http://www.scribd.com/doc/141257870/Respondent-Brief

In response, Malin's attorneys say that Singer is attempting to "hide behind the litigation privilege" by contending that "anything that an attorney puts into a 'demand letter' constitutes 'protected speech' ... no matter how egregious, or how unrelated the statement (threat) may be to the actual basis of the dispute."

Read the full respondent's brief here.... http://www.scribd.com/doc/141257870/Respondent-Brief

Read More.... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/hollywood-lawyer-marty-singer-appeals-521725

Charlie Sheen's Ex-Wife Brooke Mueller loses Custody of Twins

Brooke Mueller, ex-wife of Charlie Sheen, has once again lost custody of the twin boys she shares with the "Anger Management" actor, according to reports out Friday.

The kids were taken from the home late Thursday night, according to TMZ, whose sources said the Los Angeles County Department of Child and Family Services determined the home was unsafe because Mueller was allegedly using drugs again.

"Brooke was given many opportunities by social workers to clean up her act," a source close to the situation told Radar Online, which first reported the news. "Social workers felt that Bob and Max weren’t safe in Brooke’s care."

Mueller is allegedly refusing to go to rehab this time, according to Radar. “Brooke is fine, everybody will be fine," her mother told the website Friday.

"It just wasn't a stable environment with different nannies coming in and out, and child protective services came in and did their thing, and this is the outcome," a source close to Mueller told the New York Daily News. "Brooke didn’t have a say in this."

The 4-year-olds, Bob and Max, are reportedly in the temporary care of Denise Richards, another Sheen ex and the mother of their girls, 9-year-old Sam and 7-year-old Lola.

Richards took care of the boys late last year, when Mueller, who has long struggled with substance abuse, was in rehab once again, reportedly for the 19th time.

See Video and Read More... http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/gossip/la-et-mg-brooke-mueller-kids-custody-denise-richards-charlie-sheen-20130503,0,3925732.story

Joe Roth Goes for Win in $50 Million 'Anger Management' Lawsuit

Joe Roth, producer of FX's Charlie Sheen sitcom Anger Management, has filed new papers in a $50 million legal battle over the sitcom, saying that he kept his promises to another producer who spent two years developing the property for television.

The original lawsuit came from Jason Shuman and his Blue Star Entertainment, who alleged nearly a year ago, before the series premiered, that Roth's Revolution Studios "refused to honor its written producer agreement" by denying him compensation and a producer credit on Anger Management.

Roth, who is targeted personally for alleged fraud, now says he's entitled to a summary judgment victory.

According to Roth's motion, "Plaintiffs have obviously tacked their fraud claim against Roth onto their breach of contract action against Revolution in an unsubtle attempt to intimidate and embarrass a very successful high-profile figure in the entertainment industry (the former chairman of both the Disney and Fox studios) with negative publicity and the annoyance of meritless litigation. Plaintiffs' fraud action against Roth should be summarily dismissed."

Read Roth's full motion here... http://www.scribd.com/doc/126278919/Roth

Shuman previously worked with Roth to develop the TBS series Are We There Yet?

But Shuman wasn't happy about his compensation on that project. Roth is said to have told Shuman that he would "make it up" by giving him significant backend ownership and producer credit on the next motion picture property that was turned into a TV series.

And that's exactly what happened, according to Roth.

In 2009, the parties signed a new agreement for Are We There Yet? that Roth says contained an integration clause that superseded prior agreements. Roth says that Shuman's company got $500,000 in total fixed compensation, that Shuman got producer credit and that Blue Star got 2.5 percent of any backend.

According to the summary judgment motion, "The sole reason that plaintiffs were not paid under the Producer Agreement was, because the AAMP was not developed, produced and sold] and the Sheen series did not fall under the Producer Agreement by its express terms."

Roth also is getting an assist from Sheen himself, who submitted his own declaration (read in full here). According to the actor, he participated in a meeting a few months after departing from Two and a Half Men, where he heard a pitch for Anger Management.

"I thought this suggestion was brilliant," says the actor. "There had been a lot of publicity in the preceding few months as to whether I might have my own 'anger management' issues, and the irony of my portraying an anger management therapist (as opposed to an anger management patient) appealed to me."

Sheen's filing goes through the various meetings he held as well as the character suggestions he offered -- e.g. former ballplayer whose career is shortened by inability to control anger and who now provides services to prison inmates -- and eventually gets around to saying, "At no time during any of these meetings do I recall anyone mentioning the names Jason Shuman, William Sherak or Blue Star."

Read More... http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/joe-roth-goes-win-50-422400