Sunshine Films, Inc. v. DVD Services
Published: Dec. 4, 1999 | Result Date: May 12, 1999 | Filing Date: Jan. 1, 1900 |Case number: BC186713 – $0
Judge
Court
L.A. Superior Central
Attorneys
Plaintiff
Defendant
Facts
Plaintiff Sunshine Films Inc., a distributor of adult videos, is owned by Rita Duak Shemesh and her brother Josef Shemesh, as vice president and production manager. On Sept. 23, 1997, plaintiff contracted with defendant/cross -complainant DVD Services, owned by William G. Wilson, for duplication of eight video titles to digital video disk (DVD's). Defendant Wilson, as broker of replication services, agreed to convert the eight titles from video format to DVD's 1,000 copies each, for $59,000. Plaintiff agreed to pay and did pay $14,750 when the contract was entered into. Another $14,750 was to be paid when the 8000 DVD's were delivered and the balance of $29,500 was to be paid 30 days after deliver. Defendant Wilson contracted with Optical Disk, owned by Erick Hanson, to convert the videos to DVD's and replicate 8000 copies. A test product was given to plaintiff and plaintiff approved it. Substantially all of the DVD's were delivered to plaintiff by the end of December. It was undisputed that 5,700 units were returned to Optical Disk on Jan. 2, 1998, for shrink wrapping and that at least another 1000 were sold. Even though approximately 8000 units were delivered by the end of December 1997, plaintiff only paid defendant Wilson $6,000 sometime in January 1998. Neither the balance of $8,750 due on delivery nor the balance of $29,500 was ever paid. Plaintiff started dealing directly with Optical Disk. Following a bench trial, the court found plaintiff breached its contract with defendant Wilson, d.b.a. DVD Services, by not paying $14,750 upon delivery and the disks and by dealing directly with Optical Disk. Plaintiff Sunshine claimed the DVD's were defective and subsequently filed suit against defendant Wilson, while Wilson filed a cross-complaint.
Settlement Discussions
The plaintiff made a settlement for $______. The defendant made an offer of $_______.
Other Information
The court concluded that the DVD's were not defective. The court also found that Shemesh wanted to get into the market quickly, was shown a sample and accepted it. Further, Shemesh wanted the shrink wrap, but did not want to pay the additional money. The court determined that the claim of bad quality was a belated afterthought to avoid paying all amounts due under the contract. Judgment was entered on June 2, 1999 against plaintiff Sunshine Films and for defendant/cross-complainant Wilson in the amount of $38,250 plus costs/attorneys fees of $6,653.47.
Length
two days
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