Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Supremes Refuse TRN, Savage Appeal

Michael Savage
The U.S. Supreme Court has denied a petition to hear an appeal by the Talk Radio Network in a lawsuit brought by host Michael Savage.

The denial of the petition leaves in place the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in July upholding a federal judge’s decision to release Savage from a contract with his former syndicator.

“After many, many years and over a million dollars of legal fees, justice has prevailed, Savage told WND. “TRN has never paid me one dime of the money they were supposed to pay me.”

TRN reportedly has withheld $862,455 from Savage in 2012 while he was fighting to get out from his contract with the syndicator.  Savage has stated that the case cost him $1 million in legal fees “and many lost days and nights.” The ruling also affirmed a court decision that gave Savage ownership of his show’s archives.

As WND reported, when U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers ruled in Savage’s favor in 2013, Savage’s lawyer, Dan Horowitz, compared it to the case that led to free agency in baseball.

“Michael is to talk radio what Curt Flood was to Major League Baseball,” Horowitz told WND at the time, referring to the player who challenged baseball’s reserve clause, which kept a player bound to his team even after fulfillment of his contract.

Horowitz said in 2013 that Savage’s victory establishes the ability of radio talent to break away from an employer like any other employee.

Radio hosts, he explained, have been bound by restrictive clauses in their contracts that treat them like businesses instead of regular employees. The law, therefore, has allowed the networks to enforce non-compete agreements with radio hosts that would be illegal if applied to individual employees.

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