An FX Networks lawsuit against Dish Network, for interfering with contracts with Disney and Sony co

[ronjohn]

The property FX owned lost value as a result of DISH giveaway. FX wanted relief. They sued to get it. Seems fair to me.

So if my neighbor sells his house for half the actual value, and my property value goes down, I can sue my former neighbor for the difference in the high value and the low value of my house?

 

[bellevuecoug]

You guys are all missing the major point of this story - was there actually anything good on Starz that year?

 

[mike123abc]

The property FX owned lost value as a result of DISH giveaway. FX wanted relief. They sued to get it. Seems fair to me.

A sane person might think that getting 14 million people used to watching StarZ would be a good thing and result in more customers keeping the service at the end of the promotion...

 

[TNGTony]

So if my neighbor sells his house for half the actual value, and my property value goes down, I can sue my former neighbor for the difference in the high value and the low value of my house?

Believe it or not, you can! This just happened in my neighborhood. A person essentially "gave" away his house to a flipper who proceeded to go bust. That person's next door neighbor filed suit against the original owner and the developer AFTER their bankruptcy went through for damages. I will say that property looks like a bomb went off in the house and took the yard with it! How successful the suit will be is another story.

 

[cosmo_kramer]

Maybe there should just be an open thread titled:

A _________ lawsuit against Dish Network, for ___________________ could be headed to trial ___________.

 

[bentjm]

You can pretty much sue anyone for anything. Winning is a whole other issue. Change the laws concerning who has to pay for a lost lawsuit and a chunk of them with go away.

 

[ronjohn]

Believe it or not, you can! This just happened in my neighborhood. A person essentially "gave" away his house to a flipper who proceeded to go bust. That person's next door neighbor filed suit against the original owner and the developer AFTER their bankruptcy went through for damages. I will say that property looks like a bomb went off in the house and took the yard with it! How successful the suit will be is another story.

But in the case you are describing, the house was damaged causing an eyesore and the area to be less valuable.

In the Disney case against Starz and Dish, Disney claimed that even if Dish's contract with Starz allowed them to pay Starz and not charge their customers, Starz's contract with Disney did not give them the authority to subcontract such a deal.

In the FX case, they are saying that because more people were subscribed to Starz, the value of the movies they paid for the rights to was lowered. If you assume that FX did suffer harm, they would have suffered the same harm if every Dish subscriber had paid $13 a month for access to Starz.

 

[mike123abc]

Essentially FX is claiming that Dish devalued its content by giving everyone free StarZ, so they could watch movies (22 overlapped) on StarZ commercial free instead of watching them on FX, devaluing the rights that FX bought.

The relevant paragraphs from the article above: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/fx-networks-lawsuit-may-test-705956

FX asserts that Dish's giveaway devalued FX's rights by tens of millions of dollars. The cable network says it didn't get what it paid for on those 22 movies, and adds that had it known that Dish intended to overexpose the movies in question (which aren't identified), it would have paid 10 to 15 percent less to the studios to license them.
"It is like FX agreed to purchase 22 low-mileage used cars from Disney and Sony, but before it received the cars, Dish grabbed the keys, hopped into the driver's seats and put an extra 50,000 miles on each car," says the plaintiffs' legal brief.
In turn, Dish is asking for summary judgment because it believes that it was contractually authorized to do its Starz giveaway. Furthermore, the satellite TV defendant is rebutting the tortious interference claim by claiming it "did not know about FX's studio contracts for the movies at issue" and rejecting the proposition that it formed the intent to interfere with these contracts.

 

[DishSubLA]

So if my neighbor sells his house for half the actual value, and my property value goes down, I can sue my former neighbor for the difference in the high value and the low value of my house?

Hey that's an excellent anology since appraisals are based on comps--by far more than any other factor. This means you get less for your re-fi/loan/2nd mortgage. Hey, we can all sue our neighbors. .

 

[navychop]

"...which aren't identified..." might be a fatal flaw. I wonder if they can amend the suit now and be more specific.


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