Summary judgment hearing no laughing matter

LOS ANGELES -- A summary judgment hearing in federal court Thursday was no laughing matter as a Malaysian comedian accused the Laugh Factory comedy club of failing to pay him a $100,000 prize for winning a comedy contest while the club's owner accused the comedian of stealing trade secrets when he opened a club in his country called the "Joke Factory."

Comedian Harith Iskander claims after he won the Laugh Factory's "Funniest Person in the World Contest" in 2016, he should have received the advertised prize of $100,000 and a U.S. comedy tour. However, according to Iskander, the club owner, Jamie Masada, only paid him $10,000, withholding $90,000 until Iskander completed numerous press appearances.

Iskander said nowhere in the contest rules did it say receiving the prize money was contingent on fulfilling press appearances. Then in December 2018, Iskander filed an eight-claim suit against Masada in state court alleging promissory fraud, misleading advertising and breach of contract.

Masada has denied the allegations. He claims Iskander acknowledged and did not object to contest rules requiring 10 press appearances and the stipulation the Laugh Factory would pay the $100,000 in $10,000 installments paid after each appearance.

Masada, taking the case to federal court, counter sued, claiming Iskander feigned interest in becoming business partners with him to gain access to his club and trade secrets before opening his own club in Malaysia called the "Joke Factory Comedy Club." Harith Iskander v. Laugh Factory, Inc., 19-cv-01076., (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 12, 2019).

Arguing Thursday before U.S. District Judge Michael W. Fitzgerald, Iskander's counsel, Joseph K. Johnson of Mission Viejo, said Masada had done nothing to protect his alleged trade secrets and claimed they weren't secrets at all.

He further argued that since Masada revealed the alleged secrets in his pleadings, they were no longer secret.

"I mean this really isn't the secret sauce or Coca-Cola's recipe we're talking about; it's a comedy club," Johnson said. "Somebody gets up, says some jokes and you pay them -- unless of course the secret is how to stiff comedians from foreign countries."

Masada's counsel, Johnny Darnell Griggs of Albright Yee and Schmit APC, responded saying only "categories of information" were described in their filings and "never did we describe what that information was."

"The things he [Masada] told Mr. Iskander, he told no one else," Griggs said. "In terms of trade secrets itself, Mr. Masada described to Mr. Iskander the operations of his club soup to nuts. Finances, the bar, talent acquisition, real estate, advertising and marketing; things that together formed the basis of the Laugh Factory's success."

According to Masada's motion for summary judgment, Iskander used the comedy contest to get close to Masada and exploit that relationship to obtain Laugh Factory's trade secrets. Only after Iskander acquired those and opened his own club in August, 2018, did he claim he was owed the balance of the $100,000 prize money.

After hearing from both parties, Fitzgerald said he would take the matter under submission.