The Saul Zaentz Company v. Sprint

Filing 49

DECLARATION in Opposition re 48 Defendant's Motion for Partial Summary Judgment filed by The Saul Zaentz Company. (Related document(s) 48 ) (Halvonik, Paul)

PAUL N. HALVONIK
California State Bar 34637
2600 Tenth Street
Berkeley, CA 94710
[phone]
Attorney for Plaintiff
SAUL ZAENTZ CO.

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA

THE SAUL ZAENTZ COMPANY,
a corporation,

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)
)
Plaintiff
)
)
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vs.
)
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SPRINT, a corporation,
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)
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Defendant.
)
)
____________________________________)

No. C-02-1956-SC
DECLARATION OF PAUL N.
HALVONIK IN SUPPORT OF
PLAINTIFF’S OPPOSITION TO
DEFENDANT’S MOTION FOR
PARTIAL SUMMARY JUDGMENT
Date: February 7, 2003
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Courtroom 1, 450 Golden Gate Ave.,
San Francisco, CA

Paul N. Halvonik, under penalty of perjury, declares that:
1. I am attorney of record for plaintiff The Saul Zaentz Company;

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2. Plaintiff’s Exhibits A and B submitted pursuant to paragraph 10 of the
Confidentiality Stipulation and Order are true copies of documents furnished to me by
defendant in discovery;
3. I first spoke with one of defendant’s counsel, Richard Kurnit, on June 28, 2002.
Mr. Kurnit said he was interested in discussing settlement if I would mention a reasonable
price and I told him that I would need to see the logs showing the number of stations on which
the commercial advertisement at issue ran before I would feel comfortable discussing
settlement. Mr. Kurnit promised to send me that material. It never arrived;
4. On July 24, 2002, I spoke with another of defendant’s attorneys, Jesse Beeber, who
told me she would be handling the day-to-day aspects of the case and wanted to know why I
felt the need to know the number of stations upon which the commercial advertisement had
aired. I responded that I thought each airing on a different station was a separate infringement
and expressly brought Ms. Beeber’s attention to the decision in Columbia Pictures v. Krypton
Broadcasting, 259 F.3d 1136 (9th Cir. 2001). I understood Ms. Beeber to promise to get me
the information that I had asked for; a week after our conversation, defendant filed its answer
in this action, but the information I sought never arrived.
5. Ms. Beeber’s recollection concerning the Court-ordered ADR teleconference of
September 10, 2002, (Beeber Declaration, ¶5) is mistaken. It was Ms. Beeber, not I, who
estimated that “tens of millions of dollars” were at stake. I had no way of making such an
estimate because I had no clue as to how many stations had broadcast the advertisement but,
from Ms. Beeber’s estimate, I inferred there were quite a few stations involved. I agreed,
during that teleconference, to submit the issue of the number of infringements involved to a
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neutral evaluation but Ms. Beeber declined. I at no time suggested to Ms. Beeber or any of
defendant’s other lawyers that I shared her “tens of millions of dollars” theory;
6. I have at no time expressed a view on the value of the case. I have simply asked for
fundamental information that I think my client needs in order to make an informed judgment.
Agreeing to a settlement without knowing the number of stations involved, to my mind,
would border on malpractice, an opinion I have communicated to defendant. My client and I
are open to settlement; what has stalled any settlement is defendant’s refusal to tell plaintiff
the number of different stations upon which its commercial ran;
7. Plaintiff has, as yet, not even decided to seek statutory damages.
The above is true of my own knowledge and if called as a witness I could competently
testify thereto. Executed at Berkeley, California, this 13th day of February , 2003.

___________________
PAUL N. HALVONIK

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