Talent managers may finally be able to enforce their contracts

I'm going to be really brief here.  My dear friend and outstanding talent manager Rick Siegel has been pursuing a case called Marathon Entertainment vs. Rosa Blasi through the California courts at tremendous financial and personal cost to him and his extraordinary wife.  Rick finally won a landmark ruling from the Court of Appeals that even if there was a violation of the procurement provisions of the California Talent Agents Act, that the remainder of a manager's contract may still be valid.  Today Rick learned that the California State Supreme Court will  hear the case, scheduled to begin on November 6. 

Comments

[Art Chang]

Rick sent me the following clarification:

"Just so you have the complete understanding, it’s Blasi who appealed and will be heard re: severability.

"But first we petitioned and the court agreed to allow briefs and will be heard on whether talent managers have been wrongly insinuated into Talent Agencies Act disputes. Personal managers are not either mentioned or referred to in either the Title (obviously) or contents of the Act.

"As such, the court needs to examine the legislative intent, to see if the State’s legislators intended to make managers subject to the Act’s rules and regulations.

"That examination shows that while regulating managers was one of the rationale for creating the Act, after the fourth draft bill the the legislators chose not to regulate us.

"As per 150 years of case law, if the legislature first considered and then chose not to incorporate a group into a set of statutes, no court has the right to later insinuate that group into those statutes.

"And that’s our entire argument. Since we’re wrongly infused into TAA regulation, once that’s found we can’t be found to have violated the TAA procurement issue, so the severability becomes a non-issue.

"Looking forward to seeing you, and thanks."

[Jessica Leiendecker]

Rick is an extraordinary human being, as well as a major superstar within the talent management world. He has gone to hell and back trying to get equal treatment for fellow managers and I firmly believe he will win this battle and big, fat actresses (they know who they are) will be forced to recognize who helped them reach their success - monetarily and otherwise.

GO RICK GO!