Entertainment & Sports Law

Weekly Summaries Distributed February 27, 2015 PW Enters., Inc. v. North Dakota Bankruptcy, Entertainment & Sports Law, Tax Law  U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Fischer v. Time Warner Cable Inc. Civil Procedure, Class Action, Communications Law, Entertainment & Sports Law  California Court of Appeal

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PW Enters., Inc. v. North Dakota Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit Docket: 14-1077 Opinion Date: February 20, 2015 Areas of Law: Bankruptcy, Entertainment & Sports Law, Tax Law In 2001, N.D. Laws 53-06.2-10.1 was amended to authorize “account wagering,” a form of parimutuel wagering in which an individual deposits money in an account and, through a licensed simulcast service provider authorized to operate a simulcast parimutuel wagering system, uses the balance to pay for parimutuel wagers. The legislature did not make corresponding changes to section 53-06.2-11 or otherwise alter the statutory takeout formulas to authorize a tax on account wagering until 2007. Racing Services (RSI), formerly a state-licensed horse racing simulcast service provider, filed bankruptcy. PW Enterprises, its largest non-governmental creditor filed suit on behalf of all creditors to recover money the state collected from RSI as taxes on parimutuel account wagering. The district court held that the money must be returned to the bankruptcy estate because North Dakota law did not authorize the state to collect taxes on account wagering before 2007. The Eighth Circuit affirmed. Though some members of the legislature may have understood account wagering would be taxed similarly to existing forms of parimutuel wagering, that belief does not make the statute as written ambiguous or require a court to strain to infer a legislative intent that is entirely absent from the statutory language. http://j.st/4AYh View Case On: Justia Google Scholar

Fischer v. Time Warner Cable Inc. Court: California Court of Appeal Docket:B254863 Opinion Date: February 23, 2015 Areas of Law: Civil Procedure, Class Action, Communications Law, Entertainment & Sports Law Time Warner Cable buys content from programmers, who require it to offer their channels as part of TW’s enhanced basic cable programming tier. TW paid the Lakers $3 billion for licensing rights to televise Lakers games for 20 years. Subscription rates rose by $5 a month as result. TW paid the Dodgers $8 billion for the licensing rights to televise games for 25 years, raising monthly rates by another $4. Subscribers filed a class action lawsuit, alleging that the arrangement violated the unfair competition law (Bus. & Prof. Code 17200) because: acquisition of licensing rights to the games made TW both programmer and distributor; surveys showed that more than 60 percent of the population would not pay separately to watch the games; there were no valid reasons for bundling sports stations into the enhanced basic cable tier instead of offering them separately; TW expanded the reach of this scheme by selling its rights to the games to other providers, requiring those providers to include the channels as part of their enhanced basic tiers; and the teams knew the increased costs would be passed on to unwilling subscribers and were intended beneficiaries of these arrangements. The court of appeal affirmed dismissal: regulations implementing federal communications statutes expressly preempt the suit. http://j.st/4AQd View Case On: Justia Google Scholar