RIAA Wants Student Deposed On School Day

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In a Houston, Texas, case, UMG v. Hightower, the RIAA has served a subpoena on the defendant's son, a high school student, on one day's notice, telling him to be at a lawyer's office at 9:00 a.m. the next day, a school day, for a deposition. The defendant's lawyer objected (PDF)."

Prays?

From the Motion to Quash:

Defendant prays that the court grants this motion

Prays?? Is that what's necessary now?

Re:Prays?

I dunno, but this excuse beats the "My dog ate my homework" line.

Re:Prays?

What, pray tell, is your problem with the word?

Re:Prays?

humor, noun: a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement

oblivious, adjective: see FooAtWFU

Re:Prays?

The words court, curia and curate are cognates. Early European courts were indeed held in church. Hence 'pray' is not strictly secular.
(Of course, the origin of the word curia is even earlier and during roman times simply meant a division of the people, then the term was applied to the people meeting as a body in order to make civil and judicial decisions. It is through the Catholic church that "curia" acquired its eclesiatical meaning.)

Re:Prays?

I don't quite remember (sorry, I don't live in the USA). Isn't Texas one of the state where you can't work as a government official if you're a bloody atheist?

i don't know about the 'bloody' part, but article 1 section 4 of the bill of 'rights' of the texas constitution states that people may not hold office if they don't "acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being".

the full text is:

"No religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office, or public trust, in this State; nor shall any one be excluded from holding office on account of his religious sentiments, provided he acknowledge the existence of a Supreme Being."

my source is here [state.tx.us].

Re:Prays?

And while I'm not sure if that segment of the Texas con. has specifically been challeneged, but other states that have similar provisions have had them struck down unanimously by the USSC [Torcaso v. Watkins (1961)]. The Article VI language preventing religious tests or oaths for federal office was ruled to apply to the states.

Re:Prays?

Yes, I did some research on the topic last year and it seems that Texas doesn't enforce that clause in order not to dirty their image. If they were to enforce it they would be challenged, and if they took it all the way to the Supreme Court they would lose there, so rather than going through all that they just keep the clause for the warm fuzzy feeling it gives them, but don't bother to enforce it.

School Day == Work Day?

Uhh, I hate to even sound like I'm agreeing with the MAFIAA on anything, but when exactly are they supposed to depose him if not on a school day? The school week and the work week are pretty well aligned, and forcing them to either work on a weekend or wait until he's on vacation is stretching things. Their actions are certainly deplorable, especially giving a one-day notice, but doing it on a school day isn't one of those deplorable actions.

Re:School Day == Work Day?

How about do it after class? Unless it's a serious deposition (bah music lawsuit != worth ditching school) it can wait till after. Or better yet, bring the lawyer to the school, do it during a lunch break.

Why does the music industry feel it should tamper with the education of our minors just to placate some facile legal action?

Re:School Day == Work Day?

and forcing them to either work on a weekend or wait until he's on vacation is stretching things.

THEY want his deposition. Not the other way around.

Why should he suffer an inconvenience to suit their schedule?

In the same situation, if I had to lose a day's pay to humor the RIAA, I'd feel mightily pissed off. OTOH, I have very little doubt that some hungry young lawyer would work OT on the RIAA's dollar to take the deposition on Saturday or some weeknight.

Re:School Day == Work Day?

Why should he suffer an inconvenience to suit their schedule?

Because this is one of the RIAA file sharing lawsuits. Making people suffer is their primary objective. The greater inconvenience in the initial stages, the less likely someone will actually challenge them. This is the RIAA saying "We can make life miserable for you and your entire family, and it's completely legal. So cough up whatever amount of money _we_ think is fair, and we won't keep you dangling in legal hell for the next decade."

Re:School Day == Work Day?

The day in question was one in which the student was required to show up to take the TAKS [wikipedia.org] test, a state-wide standardized test that's required for graduation.

Re:School Day == Work Day?

The 24 hour notice thing is called abuse of process. It goes beyond the fishing expedition aspects, and gets into "now we're going to use this to screw up your life."

BTDT.

Re:School Day == Work Day?

Uhh, I hate to even sound like I'm agreeing with the MAFIAA on anything, but when exactly are they supposed to depose him if not on a school day? The school week and the work week are pretty well aligned, and forcing them to either work on a weekend or wait until he's on vacation is stretching things. Their actions are certainly deplorable, especially giving a one-day notice, but doing it on a school day isn't one of those deplorable actions.

Well special provisions are afforded to minors as opposed to adults. Also one of the objections was that the deposition would be during school hours. Certainly the plaintiff could have done it on a weekend or after school hours, but didn't do so.

Reading the motion, it appears that the subpoena was done in a very sloppy manner which explains the short notice. It appears that the plaintiff tried to email the subpoena (not legal from what I recall) and to the wrong attorney at first. The plaintiff finally sent a subpoena to the defendants home with less than 24 hours. Now, if it is true that the plaintiff's attorney failed to deliver a subpoena in a timely manner, they should have moved back the deposition to accomodate. It appears that they didn't do that either.

Re:School Day == Work Day?

How about some time after 3 PM? That's when school lets out around here - most businesses are open until at least 5. The motion also specifically noted that the student was supposed to take the TAKS test today. TAKS is our statewide standardized test which must be passed for promotion to the next grade or for graduation at the end of high school. If he misses the TAKS test he'll have to make it up at some point, forcing him to miss another day of school. TAKS days are only ~5 days out of the school year depending on grade level. Asking for a deposition on a non-TAKS day would be much less of a burden.

Re:School Day == Work Day?

when exactly are they supposed to depose him if not on a school day?

Well, it's not just any school day they picked. It's TAKS testing day - a statewide test in Texas that has to be passed to graduate from high school. They picked one of the worst possible days of the year to compel him to show up. They are either evil or ignorant, in my opinion.

Go figure.

RIAA is basically becoming an automated bot nowadays, anyway. I'd be surprised if they don't show up in court as robots with brief cases as well.

Someone needs to start doing something about RIAA's boundaries and arrogance, considering they're getting so careless with who they're attacking nowadays. How long will it be, before Judges and courtrooms are sick of these petty charges, and start only allowing the larger criminals who actually sell and distribute?

Right now, you're paying less when distributing marijuana or posessing cocaine, than you are to host MP3's.. EVEN if you're a child!

There HAS to be a line drawn somewhere.

Why would they need a deposition anyway?

With their own lawyer and without giving enough time to prepare anything. There is only one possible explanation: what they really want is an intimidation session.
Since he would not be facing a policeman but the opposition lawyer, can he simply walk away anytime he wants or refuse to sign anything?

TAKS Test

The real kicker here is not that it is a school day, but it is during Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) test week as well and the one day notice.

RIAA's fishing expedition

The defendent's attorney said:

The subpoena is being used for patently improper purpose, namely as a fishing expedition by plaintiffs'

That sums up the RIAA's entire strategy.

School's wasted on the kid anyway

His dad is obviously a music pirate, otherwise the RIAA wouldn't be bringing the lawsuit. Since we all know that pirates' sons always takeover the family business, it doesn't take a genius to see that the only thing this kid needs from school is enough math to count all the billions of doallars he's going to steal from the hard working middle managers of the music business.

They're doing him a favor. Really.

It's intentional

I'm convinced the school-day deposition request is very intentional. They want the other kids to know the boy missed an important school day because he was in hot water over file sharing. It's all part of their perverse scare tactics.

Response:

Say your lawyer is busy. You are entitled to your choice of legal representative.

Serving a notice for a sworn deposition on one day's notice is contrary to the rules of professional conduct, and can (and should) result in penalties against the lawyers' clients in court, as well as with with the lawyer regulatory disciplinary authority.

Re:Just say no?

You automatically lose the case.

I may not be a lawyer, but I know this to be false. Don't give the RIAA any more power of fear than they already enjoy. Deponents can object, if a witness refuses the moving party can ask for a motion to compel, there are lots of rememdies other than automatically losing. The biggest problem isn't that the kid is going to miss school, its that they are attempting to take his deposition with only 24 hours notice. In my experience as a paralegal, again- IANAL, that is simply poor if not abusive practice.