lawsuits

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that Judge Judy Sheindlin’s annual salary of $45 million is not unreasonable. The ruling comes in a lawsuit brought by Richard Lawrence, a talent agent who receives a commission on Judge Judy profits. Lawrence, through his company Rebel Entertainment Partners, has accused Big Ticket Television and CBS of overpaying Sheindlin, thereby reducing his piece of the profits.

A little less than two weeks and eight witnesses into the trial over AT&T’s proposed $85 billion purchase of Time Warner, and we already have a good sense of some of the issues the case — which some are calling the antitrust trial of a generation — will likely pivot around.

The Justice Department, seeking to stop AT&T Inc’s deal to purchase Time Warner Inc, sought on Monday to show how often Time Warner subsidiary Turner would threaten to cut off cable companies to win concessions during contract negotiations.

As Major League Baseball begins a new season, a former executive is calling foul on the organization’s interactive media and internet company. John Dinn Mann claims in a lawsuit that over 17 years he helped build MLB Advanced Media from a “fledgling startup” into a “media juggernaut,” but was shut out of promised profits when the majority of the unit was sold to Walt Disney Co. for $2.6 billion.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A California appeals court on Monday threw out a lawsuit by 101-year-old actress Olivia de Havilland against the creators of the FX Networks show “Feud: Bette […]

The host, whose contract was suspended and has since been terminated, is suing the public broadcaster for dropping him. PBS has issued a response to his lawsuit — and it details witness accounts about the talk show host’s alleged sexual harassment and dalliances with subordinates.

A New York federal judge won’t yet dismiss a WNYW New York reporter’s claim that she was fired in retaliation for complaining about discrimination — and found it’s too early to tell whether it was irrelevant for her to reference other women’s allegations against Roger Ailes and Billl O’Reilly in her complaint.

The government and AT&T clashed on Thursday as each launched their opening salvos in a far-reaching trial on the telecom giant’s proposed $85 billion merger with Time Warner.

Fans will be glued to the “March Madness” college basketball tournament as the joint owner of rights for the games, Time Warner Inc, goes before a judge today to defend a proposed takeover by AT&T Inc. With some 12 million viewers per game last year, the NCAA tournament exemplifies the marquee programming the U.S. government argues will become more expensive if Time Warner is bought by AT&T, the biggest pay-TV provider via subsidiary DirecTV.

AT&T says it needs to buy Time Warner to compete with the likes of Amazon, Netflix and Google in the rapidly evolving world of video entertainment. The Justice Department’s antitrust lawyers worry that consumers will end up paying more to watch their favorite shows, whether on a TV screen, smartphone or tablet.

D.C. Federal District Judge Richard Leon oversees the first day of “trial” concerning AT&T’s proposed $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner.

The talk in media circles is focused on what happens if the AT&T deal is stopped by the government and Time Warner is forced to go it alone.

Producer Gavin Polone sued Warner Bros. on Thursday, accusing the network of using creative accounting practices to deprive him of residuals for the Netflix revival of Gilmore Girls. The lawsuit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court, represents the fourth dispute between Polone and the studio over Gilmore Girls residuals in the last 16 years.

In a standoff with far-reaching implications, the government claims that the megamerger would give AT&T, which already owns the nation’s largest pay-TV provider, DirecTV, added clout to bully others, freeze out new entrants in the TV industry and increase rates for consumers. The dispute — a rare standoff in an antitrust case — will be decided by a federal judge after a trial that begins Monday in Washington, barring a last-minute settlement.

Two titans — the U.S. Justice Department and telecommunications giant AT&T Inc. — are locked in a high-stakes showdown to decide who controls some of the nation’s most popular television channels.

The parents of murdered Capitol Hill staffer Seth Rich are suing Fox News for emotional distress, claiming its coverage of the crime painted their son as a traitor and has prevented them from properly dealing with his death.

“AT&T is merging with Time Warner not to thwart online viewing, but to advance it, by enabling AT&T to introduce new video products better suited to mobile viewing,” the company writes in papers submitted to a federal judge in New York.

The family of a woman who died three months after being injured in a fall from her wheelchair outside a venue where America’s Got Talent was being taped is suing the show and NBCUniversal for wrongful death.

Six technology companies including Kickstarter, Foursquare and Etsy have launched a lawsuit against the FCC in an effort to preserve net neutrality rules. The companies, which also include Shutterstock, Expa and Automattic, on Monday filed their petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

The Wall Street Journal reports that YouTube last year stopped hiring white and Asian males for technical positions because they didn’t help the company achieve its goals for improving diversity, according to a civil complaint filed by a former employee. Journal subscribers can read the full story here.

Fox News has come out victorious in a blockbuster ruling on Tuesday that could cause a sharp derailment in the sharing of clips from the cable network. In the decision, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals analyzes copyright fair use and comes to the conclusion that TVEyes, a media monitoring service, went too far by giving its customers the ability to watch virtually all of Fox News’ content.

Facebook Inc and Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg have reached a $35 million settlement of class-action litigation accusing them of hiding worries about the social media company’s growth prior to its May 2012 initial public offering.

CNN, The Miami Herald and The South Florida Sun Sentinel filed a civil lawsuit in Broward Circuit Court today in an effort to obtain footage of the outside of the building where the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School took place earlier this month.

MOUNDSVILLE, W.Va. (AP) — A West Virginia judge has dismissed a lawsuit brought by coal company Murray Energy against HBO host John Oliver. A segment of Oliver’s Sunday show “Last Week Tonight” […]

Siding against Charter, a New York state judge has refused to dismiss Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s lawsuit alleging that the company duped consumers by delivering broadband speeds that were slower than advertised.

Katie O’Connell Marsh, the first CEO of Gaumont International Television, is suing the company — now called Gaumont Television USA — claiming that it deprived her of “millions of dollars in bargained-for contingent compensation” from TV series she developed.

CBS and Sony Pictures Television are facing a $30 million breach-of-contract lawsuit for allegedly failing to pay agreed-upon profits from the hit 1990s series Walker, Texas Ranger to its star Chuck Norris.

The suit alleges that Fox schemed with private equity giant Apollo Global Management to strip the assets of American Idol producer Core Media to the detriment of lenders.

Once again, Judge Judy finds herself on the other side of the bench with a new breach-of-contract complaint filed against the top TV judge and CBS. While the jury-trial seeking suit from Kaye Switzer and the trust of the late Sandi Spreckman doesn’t specify damages, it does state that the plaintiffs are owed $4.75 million from the $95 million sale of Judge Judy to CBS in August.

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — One of the former stars of the “Jersey Shore” reality TV show is due in federal court in Newark on Friday to plead guilty to cheating […]