Sunday, July 11, 2010

New Briefs at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals

I am catching up on the news.

A commenter identifying herself as "Linda" wrote:

Is there any word on how writers who didn't know about the case (and who weren't contacted by the lawyers) but who were clearly part of the class can end up with any remuneration?

I did, in 2007, contact the lawyers for Tasini and was told, despite the fact that I can document numerous stories published by Newsday (and printed off their website)that because I didn't see their ad, that I was out of luck - just too bad for me since I didn't respond by the time they said I should.

I've been informed of numerous class action suits and always been told I could opt out, but never that if I didn't respond I would be included but not remunerated.

Will this change as a result of the more recent hearings
?

Answer: The status of "absent" class members has not changed as a result of the Supreme Court ruling in Reed Elsevier v. Muchnick. That decision simply remanded the Freelance case to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals for consideration of our objectors' arguments on the merits.

If the settlement stands in its current form, writers like Linda are indeed out of luck, as she puts it. The rights and wrongs of that are part of what is up for discussion at the Second Circuit.

The briefs of the appellants (the objectors) and the appellees (the defendants and the plaintiffs) have all been filed and can be viewed at the links below. At this time there is no further schedule on the Second Circuit's consideration of this appeal.

OBJECTORS' BRIEF (filed 6/7/10): http://muchnick.net/Objectors2dCir6-7-10.pdf

DEFENDANTS' RESPONSE BRIEF (filed 6/23/10): http://muchnick.net/Defendants2dCirResponse.pdf

PLAINTIFFS' RESPONSE BRIEF (filed 6/23/10): http://muchnick.net/Plaintiffs2dCirResponse.pdf

OBJECTORS' REPLY BRIEF (filed 7/1/10): http://muchnick.net/Objectors2dCirReply.pdf