Admission by a Party Opponent Grounds Royalties from “I’ll Fly Away”
Few songs have transcended time and crossed musical genres as effortlessly as Albert E. Brumley Sr.’s depression-era composition “I’ll Fly Away.” Originally composed as a gospel tune in 1928, the song has since been performed by countless artists, including Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, Alan Jackson, Alison Krauss, Bob Dylan, and even Kanye West. With so many royalties at stake, it was only a matter of time before the song wound up at the center of a copyright dispute, and that is exactly what happened.
By Futility of Demand on Board of Directors in Derivative Suit
The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee recently rejected an argument that might have given shareholders an end run around the demand requirements for derivative suits. See Lay v. Burley Stabilization Corp, 2010 WL 2639931 (E.D. Tenn. Jun. 28, 2010). In Tennessee, plaintiffs in a derivative action must “allege with particularity the demand made, if any, to obtain action by the directors and either why the plaintiffs could not obtain the action or why they did not make the demand.” Tenn. Code Ann. §48-56-401(c). The demand requirement is typically excused if the plaintiff establishes that demand would be futile. However, to establish futility, plaintiffs must demonstrate that: (1) that the board is interested and not independent and (2) that the challenged transaction is not protected by the business judgment rule.
Legislative Update: Workers Compensation Law for Construction Industry Amended
A law requiring every worker on a construction site to have workers’ compensation insurance on themselves has been permanently amended. Under the prior law, sole proprietors and partners were not required to obtain coverage. By classifying employees as sole proprietors, some employers (mostly in the construction industry) were able to take advantage of this loophole. To thwart these misclassifications, legislation was passed requiring that all construction workers on a construction site, with a few minor exceptions, be covered under a workers’ compensation policy. After small contractors across the state complained about the cost of the requirement, legislators passed a bill temporarily suspending the law until March 2011. Now lawmakers have made good on their promise to resolve the issue before then, recently passing a law that amends the requirement permanently. See Chapter 1149 of the Public Acts of 2010 (Senate Bill No. 3591).
Status Update: Facebook in the Courtroom
With social networking sites like Facebook (which has 350 million members) reaching unprecedented levels of popularity and use, social media seems to be everywhere. The courtroom is no exception. In Maryland, a Mayor challenged her misdemeanor embezzlement conviction after discovering that five jurors “friended” each other on Facebook during the trial. In Arkansas, a $12 million verdict was overturned because a juror used Twitter to update his followers during the trial. And in Florida, the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee ruled that judges should “un-friend” attorneys who might appear before them in court, in order to avoid the appearance of impartiality.
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