Woody Allen Sues American Apparel

Woody Allen has suffered a wrong. Yeah, I know. You're thinking, "So what? This guy probably deserved it, right?" Wrong. He was minding his own business this time and not doing anything kinky or otherwise strange, perverted, or objectionable. Nevertheless, it seems that he still may end up getting screwed.

What happened is this: A clothing company called American Apparel decided to use Woody Allen's image to sell their clothing without his consent. They put his image on their billboards, no less, as well as their website.

Now, this didn't sit too well with Mr. Allen who doesn't endorse products in the U.S. In fact, it made him quite angry. American Apparel did take down the billboards and remove Mr. Allen's image from their website. They claim they've even apologized. But that isn't enough for Mr. Allen. He is suing them for damages.

Some may say the amount of damages Mr. Allen is asking for is excessive. After all, he is requesting $10 million dollars - that's not chump change. But there are some issues to remember here. An actor's image is his living, and when it is stolen it is more than stealing money out of his pocket - it is stealing the potential of future earnings because the use of that image may foreclose future opportunities.

Moreover, the laws regarding damages vary from state to state so maybe in New York, where the suit has been filed, the majority of the damages are punitive meaning that they are meant to punish American Apparel for their actions rather than compensate Mr. Allen. Granted, Mr. Allen still gets the money, but suits with punitive damage awards benefit society because they keep this type of action from happening again. "Bad guys" are hesitant to do certain acts because they fear being hit by a punitive damage award.

Lastly, it is a common practice among lawyers to ask for a greater amount than you believe you'll get. If you think you'll get 2 million you ask for 4 million, if you think you'll get 5 million you ask for 7 or 8 million and so on. This often depends on the attorney and the jurisdiction of the case, but think of it as a yard sale. Do you put your low ball price on what you're selling? Of course not. You know that the buyers will want to come and dicker on price. In law a complainant often asks for a greater amount of damage than he thinks he'll get just so that there is a better place for him to start going down from in settlement talks.

Whether you agree or disagree with Mr. Allen's strategy in this case, you surely must see that he is the victim in this suit. Now it appears that by filing this suit he will be victimized further. American Apparel's strategy in this case is rather odd and very ugly. They plan to try and call anyone they can find who might have something sleazy to say about Mr. Allen. They plan on calling Mia Farrow to dredge up the disproved claims of sexual abuse of their jointly adopted child (remember, Allen was exonerated of the abuse charges, but Farrow won sole custody). Allen's wife, Soon-Yi Previn (Soon-Yi Previn is also Farrow and Allen's adopted daughter), Allen's sister, and magazine publisher Larry Flynt.
American Apparel's basis for wanting to call these witnesses has nothing to do with any defense they have for using Allen's image without permission. No, what they claim is that there is plenty of evidence out there to show that Allen's image isn't worth 10 million dollars!

Frankly, this is absurd. First, American Apparel's argument fails on technical grounds. You just can't put any witness on the stand and have them testify on anything you want them to. There is such a thing as relevance and admissibility. These witnesses don't appear to be able to testify to anything that is relevant to the case.

Second, American Apparel's argument fails on the basis of plain old common sense. How can they slam Mr. Allen's image when they thought it good enough to advertise their multimillion dollar product? Oh, in case you didn't know, American Apparel is the largest clothing manufacturing company in the U.S. Big. Really Big. So if he's good enough for them, how is it that he isn't good enough to pay for?

I'll tell you why. Because they really don't want to go to trial. What they're trying to do is make Mr. Allen so scared that he'll settle this case for some absurdly low amount. In fact, they've already intimated that they're ready to settle.

There are a variety of sanctions the Court can order when a party to a lawsuit acts unreasonably or otherwise improperly. American Apparel is wasting the Court's time with this unbelievable premise. Rule 11 sanctions might be appropriate.

While Mr. Allen doesn't really need or deserve the extra money, I hope he gets every dime of that 10 million. In fact, my mind drifts to that Paul Newman movie, "The Verdict" when the jury comes in and says they want to give the Plaintiff more than she asked for. Wouldn't that be sweet if that happened in this case?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/toby-barlow/how-stupid-is-american-ap_b_187842.html

http://my.att.net/s/editorial.dll?pnum=1&bfromind=8370&eeid=6551995&_sitecat=1479&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=1&ck=&ch=en