Becoming the Storm
30 Assault
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH. That’s when the shit hits the fan.
We’d survived midterms with less stress than in the fall. We wouldn’t do a Young Cooking show during spring break, but I’d done two on Saturday and we’d do the last two the week after break. We’d all agreed that we needed to do spring cleanup around the ranch. Jess’s house had been delivered in the village the week before, giving us four full-time residents. Casa del Agua’s new house, just downhill from Dinita’s, would be delivered in two weeks. The foundations had been poured for the Corazón General Store. Maribelle was pacing around the worksite like a mother hen. We were going to spend Monday as a general maintenance day and all came out of our houses after forms in our grubby blue jeans and work clothes.
It was still getting cold at night, but in spite of flurries over the past week, we all knew that we only had a week free to get the work done and it looked like it would be a decent day. We raked, mowed where there was enough grass, plowed the garden, washed windows, and picked up detritus left by the winter winds and construction crews. It was too early to lay sod for the new houses, but a crew went from house to house spreading topsoil and raking it smooth. Martha and Bea worked in the studio kitchen to get soup and sandwiches on the counter for us at noon. We were all working hard, but having a good time and getting a lot done.
Judy came running into the studio through the side door.
“Brian! It’s time!” Hannah ran to the studio control room. April and Jess were pulling headsets on as they grabbed their cameras and ran out the side door. Jason was up the stairs to the front balcony where we had a stationary camera mounted. I grabbed my white jacket and flipped the switch on my microphone.
“Test,” I said.
“We’re live!” Hannah shouted. I headed toward the front door but didn’t open it. I waited for the pounding knock. It came a few seconds later. I opened the door to find Deputy Sheriff Dave on the front porch with a guy in a blue suit. I pushed the storm door open and stepped out on the porch, closing the door behind me. I held a finger to my lips and pointed to the ‘on-air’ light beside the door. I moved farther onto the porch.
“Brian Frost?” the deputy said.
“Yes, Deputy. You know me,” I said. He stepped back. The suit stepped forward.
“Brian Frost, as executive producer of Redress and a representative of Hearthstone Entertainment, you are hereby served with a cease and desist order. By order of District Judge Clement Armstrong of New York City, you are ordered to halt all distribution of Redress to broadcast stations. You are in violation of first broadcast rights assigned to Lifelong Women’s Network.” He shoved a paper at my chest a little harder than necessary since I was holding my hand out to accept the document. It fell to the ground. I looked at the deputy and left the paper on the porch. “You are furthermore being sued by Lifelong Women’s Network for breach of contract, having done irreparable damage to its broadcast reputation.” He shoved another paper against my chest pushing me back. That paper, too, fell to the ground.
“Deputy, this man has assaulted me twice in your presence,” I said. “Is it your intention to allow a third time?” Davey seemed to snap back into himself.
“Mr. Livingston, you have completed your service. I suggest you return to your vehicle. If you touch Mr. Frost again, I will arrest you for assault,” Dave said.
“You’ll what?” Livingston yelled. “I’ll have your ass in a sling before I leave for New York.”
“This is not New York City, sir. In general, we try to be polite to people,” Dave said.
“You are protecting a criminal.”
“Now that is news,” I said calmly, bending to pick up the fallen papers. “I’m glad we’ve got it on tape.”
Livingston pulled back as if to give me a shove with his foot and then saw the cameras pointed at him from either side. He turned on his heel and headed for his car. It kicked gravel back all over the deputy’s car.
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Frost,” Dave said. “I did not expect an officer of the court to behave that way. If your cameras are still running, I’d like to do a quick inspection of the back of my vehicle.” I nodded but stayed on the porch. April followed the deputy to the back of his car. Jess came over the side rail of the porch and moved closer to me so he could see the deputy and April over my shoulder as they examined his car. Deputy Dave shook his head. I couldn’t hear what he said, but I knew April had a mike on her camera. All our cameras were equipped with ambience microphones. April came back to the porch as the deputy got back in his car and pulled out, slowly. April and Jess lowered their cameras and I saw the red lights were out. I reached into my jacket and turned off my wireless mike. We went inside.
“Brian, Rose, and Hannah! We need you on a conference call with Don and Barb! In Stall One,” Samantha called out. We dutifully trooped into the office.
“Well played,” Don said. “We have everything that is needed except the text of the two documents. FAX them to us right away. We notified Art and Teri Pratt as soon as Samantha called us to let us know it was happening. They’ve already set things in motion with the county judge there in Bloomington. You’ve dealt with him before. We believe he’ll void the order. If for no other reason than that he is always a bigtime defender of the home team. You will probably need to appear before him tomorrow. Teri will let you know. As to the lawsuit, Art has been preparing the countersuit for a week. That dude is seriously someone you do not want to sue you. He works on percentage and he’s rich.”
“What about the tape?” Hannah asked. “Can we release it?” Don and Barb consulted for a moment.
“Yes. He was identified as an officer of the court, which only means that he was given a document to deliver. The deputy is a public official. Neither one is exempt from news filming. Better put together an information lead in, but make it clear it was post-recorded. Do you have someone not in your shows who has good camera presence?”
“Samantha,” Hannah answered. Sam, who was taking notes on our meeting, dropped her pen.
“Get to it, then,” Barb said. “And get us that FAX.”
It took about twenty minutes to get Samantha into wardrobe and makeup to film a quick intro and conclusion to the tape. Hannah did minimal editing, letting one camera carry the bulk of the shot so it looked more like news footage.
The news was broadcast in New York before Mr. Livingston got home.
The week went crazier from there. When the Nielsen weekend report came out on Tuesday, we’d captured the timeslot in every market where we went head-to-head with Dress for Success. That’s not to say we had the top-rated show on Sunday night. Local news at 6:00 often had the timeslot, but on Sunday evening some stations didn’t even have local news. And we weren’t going head-to-head with 60 Minutes at 7:00. But we were soundly beating out our main competitor and were standing tall against most cable networks for the timeslot. No wonder LWN was pissed. Well, we warned them.
Arthur and Teri Pratt were with us Wednesday morning when we went to see Judge Dillin in Indianapolis. Judge Smith in Bloomington couldn’t help on this because he was a county judge and we needed a district judge. Who outranked whom was beyond me and I just let the Pratts guide me to where I needed to be. I was glad we were on spring break, but wished I was spending more time with my family, horses, and community.
“I knew when I met you that you were going to need a lawyer one day,” Art said, chuckling at me. I remembered that day when he’d demanded Jingo be put down for throwing Jennifer. I was glad to have him on my side in this. It was actually Teri who was going before the judge to have the cease and desist voided. Art was handling our countersuit.
Rose was with me as co-CEO of Hearthstone Entertainment. She could have gone alone, but they chose to name me in the suit so I was there as well. Conrad Dole was there, of course, with another lawyer. Heaven hadn’t been named in the suit, but Teri had called her manager and attorney in to present a united front. Art and Teri’s style apparently appealed to Conrad as he agreed to fight the suit. He’d better. He was making an extra bundle off his percentage of Heaven’s residuals. Don and Barb were with us as well, but they were resources and not arguing the points.
It was a long afternoon and mostly Rose and I waited in the lobby while the lawyers had appointments with the judge and each other. It turned out that the judge in New York routinely handled entertainment industry civil cases and hadn’t actually reviewed the contract. Judge Dillin had him on the phone for an hour as the two went over the fine points and Teri, Don, and Barb were called on to explain terms. Art met with Conrad and the other attorney to make sure they were handling the countersuit in sync. Heaven was suing for damages to her career in violation of LWN’s contract. There were a lot of questionable areas, but Conrad was content to peck at LWN a little at a time for a long time to come. I had a feeling he had a personal reason for being pissed at the network and it didn’t have to do with what they promised us. I wondered if he had a private deal with them.
Ultimately, the two judges agreed to void the cease and desist order and refer the suits to civil court. A lot would depend on where it was tried and how the lawyers negotiated it. The key element we had was the legal contract term ‘release’ as it related to the production company as opposed to ‘broadcast’ as it related to the network. It was likely the case would go on for a year or more before anyone saw any money.
“The chances are,” Art said, “that no one will make any money off this. Except LWN’s lawyers. They will try to drag things out as long as possible because they are paid by LWN. I work on a percentage. If the suits finally cancel each other out, neither you nor LWN will have to pay each other and I will have done my daughter a favor. LWN will have to pay their lawyers.”
“I hope you aren’t upset about having a case that doesn’t earn you anything,” I said.
“You know what a loss leader is?” Art asked. I shook my head. “It’s when you give something away up front in hopes of a large sale later on. It’s what encyclopedia salesmen used to do when they offered people volume A of the encyclopedia for free and then got people to subscribe for the rest of the alphabet. I have a feeling you’ll have more profitable cases in the future.”
Great. Just what we need.
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