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Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Law with June Brusso from Bloomberg Radio.

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Speaker 1: You might remember the end of the Supreme Court's term

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Speaker 1: in June, when in the space of a week, the

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Speaker 1: Republican super majority slashed the power of regulators, curbed the

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Speaker 1: SEC's use of in house judges, tossed a six billion

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Speaker 1: dollar opioid settlement, and allowed cities to evict the homeless

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Speaker 1: from public encampments. And then the justices added a day

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Speaker 1: to issue the blockbuster decision shielding former presidents from criminal

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Speaker 1: prosecution and giving Donald Trump an electioneer boost. Increasingly we

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Speaker 1: see the most controversial decisions handed down the last week

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Speaker 1: of the term. Justics Elena Kagan recently told a group

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Speaker 1: of judges and lawyers that it's not planned that way.

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Speaker 2: You know, I read at the end of every year

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Speaker 2: all these theories about how we've sort of planned it

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Speaker 2: this way, and you know, what I would say are

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Speaker 2: a little bit conspiracy theories and the truth of the matter, truly,

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Speaker 2: you know, this is really, truly the case, is that

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Speaker 2: we announce decisions when they're done.

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Speaker 1: More and more, the Court's workload is bunched up toward

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Speaker 1: the end of the term, and the upcoming term appears

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Speaker 1: to be no exception, as the justices are off to

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Speaker 1: a slow start. Joining me is Bloomberg Law Supreme Court

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Speaker 1: reporter Kimberly Strowbridge Robinson who's investigated this. Kimberly start by

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Speaker 1: explaining how the Supreme Court's calendar works.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so the Supreme Court has a pre long break

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Speaker 3: in the middle of the summer, which I think a

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Speaker 3: lot of the justices like it tends to break up

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Speaker 3: the workload, at least in the past, is broken up

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Speaker 3: the workload. But that means that when the Justices come

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Speaker 3: back to start off their terms in October, they really

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Speaker 3: have had to do some work beforehand to sort of

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Speaker 3: have enough cases that have already gone through briefing and

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Speaker 3: that are ready for arguments. So it really means that

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Speaker 3: in January, February, March, the Justices need to be granting

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Speaker 3: cases for their October, November, and December sittings. The problem

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Speaker 3: with that is that's also when the Court is still

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Speaker 3: hearing new cases and trying to get decisions together, so

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Speaker 3: it becomes a really busy time for the justices and

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Speaker 3: so they.

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Speaker 1: Have argument sittings in the fall. How many cases have

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Speaker 1: they lined up for that, and how does it compare

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Speaker 1: with other terms.

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Speaker 3: Well, this term is starting off like many recent terms,

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Speaker 3: where the justices are really getting a pretty slow start.

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Speaker 3: You know, a full calendar, we think of a full

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Speaker 3: argument calendar is about two cases a day, where the

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Speaker 3: justices here cases, you know in the morning at ten

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Speaker 3: and eleven. We haven't really seen that for a few terms,

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Speaker 3: and so instead, you know, the justices are coming in

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Speaker 3: under their full calendar, and that just means that they're

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Speaker 3: going to have to make up those empty are human

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Speaker 3: sittings in the later sittings that they have in January, February, March, April.

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Speaker 3: And you know, again that's creating this backlog where right

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Speaker 3: as other work is sort of ramping up, they're having

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Speaker 3: to go back in and fill in for the deficits

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Speaker 3: that they had in the fall.

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Speaker 1: And they're hearing far fewer cases than they did years ago.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's one thing you know, even Justice Kagan she

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Speaker 3: talked about when she clerked many decades ago, the court

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Speaker 3: was hearing you know, one hundred to one hundred and

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Speaker 3: fifty cases. Now the justices are hearing about sixty. So

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Speaker 3: it's been a really dramatic decrease and it's been a

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Speaker 3: really steady one too. And I started covering the court

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Speaker 3: about a dozen years ago, and the court was hearing

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Speaker 3: about seventy five cases, and now it's it's closer to

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Speaker 3: sixty each year, So it keeps getting smaller and smaller.

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Speaker 3: Nobody really knows why. We know, the justices are aware

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Speaker 3: of this, but nobody has really been able to pin

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Speaker 3: down why it is that the Court's hearing so so

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Speaker 3: fewer cases.

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Speaker 1: And Justice Kagan said that even she doesn't understand one

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Speaker 1: part of this process.

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Speaker 2: One part of it is a little bit unfathomable to me,

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Speaker 2: which is, for whatever reason, we seem to get a

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Speaker 2: lot of cert petitions that we take at a time

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Speaker 2: of the year where arguments are scheduled in March and April,

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Speaker 2: and those cases are just not realistically going to come

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Speaker 2: down until the end of June. And in fact, even

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Speaker 2: that is very it's a very crunched time period.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I think she was referring to the fact that,

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Speaker 3: you know, for some reason, a lot of the really

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Speaker 3: significant petitions seem to be coming into the court sort

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Speaker 3: of in the later months of its term, right when

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Speaker 3: the Court is really trying to get out all of

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Speaker 3: its opinions, usually when the justices are circulating opinions on

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Speaker 3: its most sort of consequential cases, and so it just

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Speaker 3: really seems like all the work is sort of bunching

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Speaker 3: up in the later months of the term, which you

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Speaker 3: know are in the spring and early summer. And so

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Speaker 3: she she didn't really have an explanation for it, but

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Speaker 3: she said, you know, for whatever reason, that just seems

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Speaker 3: to be the case that it makes for a really

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Speaker 3: really busy march in April sitting. And then she said

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Speaker 3: something that I thought was really candid was that, you know,

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Speaker 3: she doesn't think that the justices can really do their

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Speaker 3: best work in those months because there's so much going on.

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Speaker 3: And she sort of told the story of a previous

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Speaker 3: justice talking about, you know, one of his clerks coming

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Speaker 3: to him and saying, I can't make sense of this case.

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Speaker 3: Then he would say, well, when was it decided? Is

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Speaker 3: it an April case? Than if it is, then that

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Speaker 3: would explain why the case didn't really make any sense.

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Speaker 3: So Jessice Kagan was talking about that seems to still

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Speaker 3: be the case decades on.

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Speaker 1: Is there anything in the way they're handling cases or

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Speaker 1: a green cases that's changed over the years.

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Speaker 3: I think one thing that you know, advocates that I

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Speaker 3: talked to people who had clerked his court, people who

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Speaker 3: argue with the court, if they say that it seems

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Speaker 3: like the Court is taking bigger cases, meaning you know,

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Speaker 3: these cases that really grapple with big social issues that

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Speaker 3: are really important for the country. You know, I think

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Speaker 3: a lot of times we think of the court sort

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Speaker 3: of handling these run of them most cases about jurisdiction

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Speaker 3: or about you know, burdens of proof, things like that.

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Speaker 3: But anybody who's been paying attentions for the last few

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Speaker 3: terms as the court knows that it's not really been

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Speaker 3: like that. There's been one major case after another, and

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Speaker 3: those cases, you know, they're hard cases. They take up

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Speaker 3: a lot of the court's time. They're more likely to

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Speaker 3: be divided cases, which means that there's more likely to

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Speaker 3: be more opinions, more to cents, more concurrences. All that

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Speaker 3: just takes a lot of time.

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Speaker 1: The number of concurring opinions has really shot up in

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Speaker 1: recent terms.

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Speaker 3: It has, you know, I think one of the best

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Speaker 3: examples of this from from last term was the Second

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Speaker 3: Amendment case Brahemi, about whether or not the federal government

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Speaker 3: could bar those with a domestic violence restraining order from

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Speaker 3: owning guns. And there we saw not only a majority

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Speaker 3: and a descent, but we saw many. I think there

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Speaker 3: were five concurrences, and so, you know, in a case

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Speaker 3: that was eight to one, to see seven different opinions

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Speaker 3: was really striking. But I think it's something that people

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Speaker 3: think is going to be happening more and more, as

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Speaker 3: again we have these more consequential cases where the justices

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Speaker 3: be like, you know, they really got to get it

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Speaker 3: right and they got to explain their reasoning.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that seemed like they were each explaining their approach

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Speaker 1: to originalism or textualism or right despite agreeing. Now, I

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Speaker 1: thought this was really interesting. You spoke to someone who

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Speaker 1: said that if the court returned to hearing seventy five

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Speaker 1: cases or more, the justices would probably pick up the pace.

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Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the thinking there is that, you know,

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Speaker 3: if the court is taking you know, fewer cases, and

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Speaker 3: if a larger majority of those cases are really high profile,

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Speaker 3: that all that's going to suck up a lot of time.

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Speaker 3: And if the court were to go back to a

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Speaker 3: time where it was sort of resolving you know, circuit

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Speaker 3: splits or cases where it really doesn't matter what the

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Speaker 3: outcome is. It just there really needs to be some

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Speaker 3: sort of rule for lawyers. But they wouldn't spend so

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Speaker 3: much time on these concurring opinions, there wouldn't be so

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Speaker 3: many dissenting opinions, and it wouldn't create the kind of

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Speaker 3: bottlenecks that we sort of are guessing is happening at

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Speaker 3: the court to kind of push everything back. You know,

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Speaker 3: we really saw that this term when the justices, you know,

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Speaker 3: they used to be sort of a hard deadline that

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Speaker 3: they would not go into July, that that was sort

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Speaker 3: of a sacred time for them to go off and

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Speaker 3: take a break or to do some sort of teaching assignments.

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Speaker 3: But for the second time and a few terms, they

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Speaker 3: went into July. And we think it's probably because of

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Speaker 3: this effect of having so few cases and such a

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Speaker 3: high portion of them being really high profile.

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Speaker 1: You think about the justices being off from July through October,

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Speaker 1: but are they working at that time?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, especially now, you know, this is another thing that

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Speaker 3: Justice Kagan spoke about, as well as Justice Kavanaugh and

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Speaker 3: Justice Thomas. We're also speaking this summer, and they all

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Speaker 3: said that they feel really busy, you know, and they're

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Speaker 3: granting sixty or so cases, which isn't as many as before,

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Speaker 3: but they feel like they're working just as hard. And

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Speaker 3: that's because even in the summertime, when they typically wouldn't

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Speaker 3: have a lot of work to do, they're sort of

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Speaker 3: inundated with what we've come to know is the shadow

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Speaker 3: dog at these emergency requests, So they're definitely not on,

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Speaker 3: you know, these vacations like they used to have.

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Speaker 1: Are there any big cases coming up next term?

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Speaker 3: So far, they don't think we really see the kind

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Speaker 3: of high profile cases that we saw from last term,

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Speaker 3: which was just blockbuster after blockbuster after blockbuster. But there

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Speaker 3: are some big cases. I think the biggest one is

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Speaker 3: probably the United States versus here Many, which deals with

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Speaker 3: a Tennessee law that is a ban on gender affirming

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Speaker 3: care for minors. That's going to be a big one

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Speaker 3: and hasn't been set for argument yet. There's also another

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Speaker 3: Second Amendment case that's sort of like the bump stock

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Speaker 3: case from last year, this one dealing with ghost guns.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 3: The Biden administration says that if the Justices strike down

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Speaker 3: this that it could really undo federal gun regulations because

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Speaker 3: people can just take these kits these ghost guns and

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Speaker 3: sort of circumvent all federal laws. And then there's another,

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Speaker 3: you know, important environmental case. The justices have really been

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Speaker 3: sort of dismantling environmental cases under democratic presidential administration. So

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Speaker 3: a few big ones, but again nothing like we saw

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Speaker 3: a last term or a couple of terms ago with

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Speaker 3: abortion and affirmative action. But there's still a lot of

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Speaker 3: time to go.

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Speaker 1: I was going to say there might be election cases too,

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Speaker 1: coming up, right.

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Speaker 3: I do think, you know that maybe part of the

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Speaker 3: reason that the Court has gotten off to a slow

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Speaker 3: start as well is that they do anticipate that there

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Speaker 3: will be some emergency election cases that will be sort

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Speaker 3: of making their way up to the justices that will

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Speaker 3: require them to really focus on that in a short

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Speaker 3: period of time. And actually we already see that happening

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Speaker 3: at the course. There's a pending election case out of

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Speaker 3: Arizona that justices are considering on an emergency basis. So

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Speaker 3: it would be reasonable, I think, for them to think

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Speaker 3: that some of those cases are going to come, but

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Speaker 3: of course they don't know what those are going to

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Speaker 3: look like, and.

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Speaker 1: Of course there is a long way to go. Even

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Speaker 1: before the first Monday in October thanks so much, Kimberly.

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Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg Law. Supreme Court reporter Kimberly Strawbridge Robinson coming

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Speaker 1: up next on the Bloomberg Law Show. Will the Supreme

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Speaker 1: Court take this case? The justices are being asked to

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Speaker 1: reverse a copyright loss in a one billion dollar music case.

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Speaker 1: We'll tell you all about it. This is Bloomberg. In

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Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, a jury awarded a group of major music

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Speaker 1: labels a one billion dollar award against internet service provider

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Speaker 1: Cox Communications, finding it libel for music piracy committed by

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Speaker 1: its customers. The Fourth Circuit reversed part of the verdict

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Speaker 1: and ordered a new trial on damages. Cox is asking

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court to reverse that ruling, saying it shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be libel for infringement at all, and that the Fourth

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Speaker 1: Circuit Good's opinion would force ISPs to terminate service and

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Speaker 1: the Internet lifeline, where tens of thousands of homes and

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Speaker 1: businesses or else face crushing liability. Joining me is an

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Speaker 1: expert in internet and copyright law. Alfred Jann, a professor

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Speaker 1: at Boston College Law School, tell us about that one

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Speaker 1: billion dollar verdict.

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Speaker 4: So, as you know, internet service providers provide internet service

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Speaker 4: to people. People do whatever they want with that Internet service,

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Speaker 4: and a fair number of those people do commit copyright infringement.

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Speaker 4: They might download or upload music to the Internet without permission.

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Speaker 4: That's the most common, but movies or books might also

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Speaker 4: be the subject of that kind of behavior. In this

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Speaker 4: particular case, a bunch of record companies sued Coxcommunication because

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Speaker 4: it's subscribers did what I just described, and in this

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Speaker 4: particular case, an automated notice service and automated notices every

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Speaker 4: time they thought they detected someone committing copyright infringement. And

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Speaker 4: in this particular case, the court held that Coxcommunication was

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Speaker 4: responsible for their subscribers infringement, and that's a lot of infringement.

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Speaker 5: The record labels or the rights holders have said that

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Speaker 5: the ISPs are the only ones in the position to

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Speaker 5: be able to identify and cut off the infringement.

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Speaker 4: They may not be the only people who are in

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Speaker 4: a position to identify infringers. After all, the fact that

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Speaker 4: they were sending notices to the ISPs suggests that they

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Speaker 4: were also able to notify infringers. It is true that

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Speaker 4: the ISPs are in a good position to turn internet

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Speaker 4: service off and thereby stop infringement. However, I think it's

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Speaker 4: important to understand that there's a bit of a wrinkle

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Speaker 4: here in that internet service is not used just to

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Speaker 4: commit copyright infringement. There are lots of important things that

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Speaker 4: people do with internet service. You participate in work calls

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Speaker 4: or get assignments from your boss, access your health care,

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Speaker 4: you handle your finances, and you pay your bills and investments. Right,

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Speaker 4: you do all these things over the Internet. And so

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Speaker 4: if the expected remedy for copyright infringement is that the

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Speaker 4: service provider would turn somebody's Internet service off, the person

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Speaker 4: whose Internet service is turned off will wake up in

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Speaker 4: the morning and find out I can't get into my

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Speaker 4: bank account, I can't pay my bills, I'm not getting

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Speaker 4: communication from my employer, so on and so forth. So

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Speaker 4: it's not entirely certain, and the law does not make

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Speaker 4: particularly clear exactly what the extent of the Internet service

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Speaker 4: provider is to prevent copyright infringement by turning somebody's Internet

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Speaker 4: service off.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So then what happened is Cox took it to

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Speaker 1: the Fourth Circuit, and the Fourth Circuit determined that that

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Speaker 1: award wasn't justified, but sent it back for a new trial.

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Speaker 4: That's right now, The reason for that is that the

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Speaker 4: plaintiff originally brought two different theories of liability against cos

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Speaker 4: One is called vicarious liability and the others called contributory infringement.

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Speaker 4: The vicarious liability theory would probably lead to broader liability,

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Speaker 4: and the jury found the lower court found that Cox

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Speaker 4: was liable on both theory. On appeal, the Fourth Circuit

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Speaker 4: determined that the vicarious liability theory was not valid and

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Speaker 4: therefore only contributory liability could pertain to Cox. And so

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Speaker 4: that's why they wanted another trial on the damages because

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Speaker 4: now that we don't know what theory of liability is

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Speaker 4: actually supporting the damages, that needs to be straightened out.

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Speaker 1: So is this the first verdict of its kind? Are

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Speaker 1: the music labels going after other service providers?

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Speaker 4: Music labels are definitely going after other service providers. This

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Speaker 4: might be one of the first cases to get to

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Speaker 4: this particular position in litigation where Cox is now appealing

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Speaker 4: to the United States Supreme Court for relief from the

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Speaker 4: Fourth Circuit's decision affirming liability on contributory liability grounds.

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Speaker 1: What are the reasons it's giving the Supreme Court.

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Speaker 4: To take the case, So technically, what Cox will say

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Speaker 4: is that the Fourth Circuit's decision creates a conflict among

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Speaker 4: the circuits that other circuits who have come to consider

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Speaker 4: this particular question of law, although maybe not exactly precisely,

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Speaker 4: have done it in a different way. So the Supreme

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Speaker 4: Court needs to come in and you know, basically straighten

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Speaker 4: the whole thing out right, get the courts all on

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Speaker 4: the same page. Now, Behind that is a much bigger

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Speaker 4: policy question, which is what I was alluding to earlier,

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Speaker 4: namely that Cox thinks it's extremely important for the Supreme

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Speaker 4: Court to tell the Fourth Circuit that before they can

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Speaker 4: impose contributory liability against Cox, they have to show that

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Speaker 4: Cox behaved unreasonably in deciding to continue selling Internet services

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Speaker 4: to subscribers who commit copyright infringement.

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Speaker 1: And where did Cox get that unreasonable standard?

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Speaker 4: There are two Supreme Court cases that are fairly directly

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Speaker 4: relevant to this dispute. In those cases, the Supreme Court

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Speaker 4: said that common law principles of fault based liability should

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Speaker 4: govern the development of law. All right, what does that

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Speaker 4: mean in tort law? In common law of tort, right,

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Speaker 4: there are two general theories of liability. Intentional tort I

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Speaker 4: walked up you and punched you in the face because

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Speaker 4: I don't like you, and negligence. I was careless and

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Speaker 4: had unreasonable disregard for your safety. I was speeding, or

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Speaker 4: maybe I didn't brush the snow off the sidewalk or

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Speaker 4: something like that. In this particular case, the Fourth Circuit

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Speaker 4: said that COS should be held liable as an intentional

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Speaker 4: tort feezer that because they knew that their subscribers were

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Speaker 4: substantially certain to commit infringement for all intents and purposes,

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Speaker 4: Cox must have wanted that infringement to occur, and therefore

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Speaker 4: they should be held liable. Now, in my particular view,

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Speaker 4: that is not a correct understanding of intent under the

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Speaker 4: law of torte. First of all, Cox does not want

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Speaker 4: copyright infringement to occur. They're indifferent. They just want to

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Speaker 4: sell people internet service. Second, the mere fact that they

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Speaker 4: are substantially certain that some of their subscribers will infringe

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Speaker 4: does not make them culpable under the law of intent. So,

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Speaker 4: for example, the electric company sells electricity to people every day,

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Speaker 4: and they know that some of the people who use

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Speaker 4: the electricity will do bad things with it. They may

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Speaker 4: shock other people. You know, some people will suffer electric shocks.

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Speaker 4: People may use the electricity to commit financial crimes on

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Speaker 4: the Internet. That doesn't make the electric company liable for

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Speaker 4: that kind of behavior. So I think that the fourth

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Speaker 4: circuits construction of liability under intent based tort law is

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Speaker 4: not accurate, and I think that is effectively the basis

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Speaker 4: for Cox's appeal. It may be dressed up another language,

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Speaker 4: but I think at root that's the conceptual basis for it.

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Speaker 4: They're saying that you've got to do more than say

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Speaker 4: we know our subscribers commit copyright infringement. You have to

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Speaker 4: show that our refusal to cut their service off was

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Speaker 4: also unreasonable. I suspect what Cox would then contend is

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Speaker 4: that it was not unreasonable for us to continue to

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Speaker 4: sell internet service to these people, because the consequences would

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Speaker 4: have been catastrophic to those people. They wouldn't have been

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Speaker 4: able to get their healthcare or get emails from their

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Speaker 4: boss or whatever. It's a little bit like how the

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Speaker 4: electric come and he has to be really careful about

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Speaker 4: turning off your power in the middle of winter. I mean, yeah,

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Speaker 4: that's right, maybe you didn't pay your electric bill, but

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Speaker 4: that doesn't mean they're justified in cutting your power off, right,

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Speaker 4: away because you might freeze.

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Speaker 1: That sounds very reasonable to me. I'm wondering why the

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Speaker 1: Fourth Circuit didn't see it that way. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: problems with cutting off people's access to the Internet.

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Speaker 4: Well, mistakes do occur, and so I think there is

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Speaker 4: behind this case a larger question of what the competing

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Speaker 4: priorities in our society are. Right. Let's suppose that copyright

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Speaker 4: infringement was the equivalent of thermonuclear warfare, and it would

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Speaker 4: mean the end of the world. Well, then we would

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Speaker 4: expect people like Cox to go to great lengths to

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Speaker 4: prevent copyright infringement, even if it meant that some people

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Speaker 4: might not be able to handle their investments or communicate

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Speaker 4: with their boss. Right. On the other hand, if we

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Speaker 4: think that doing your job and you know, getting your

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Speaker 4: health care, and you know, attending online classes or whatever

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Speaker 4: is more important than some level of copyright infringement, then

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Speaker 4: maybe we feel differently. So I think that's what Cox

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Speaker 4: wants to get the Supreme Court to think about. I

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Speaker 4: think what the Fourth Circuit fell prey to is that

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Speaker 4: it's true that Cox's selling of internet service enables some

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Speaker 4: people to violate the law, and then they fell into

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Speaker 4: the easy conclusion, then then well, Cox ought to do

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Speaker 4: something to stop it, without asking further what would the

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Speaker 4: consequences of taking the desired action be. So let me

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Speaker 4: give a different example to sort of give you an

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Speaker 4: idea of what I'm saying. Okay, let's suppose that you're

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Speaker 4: driving a car and you're on your way to the

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Speaker 4: hospital and you could speed. Right now, ordinarily we would

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Speaker 4: say yacht, not speed, that's negligent, right, But let's suppose

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Speaker 4: instead that you have a woman who's pregnant and in labor,

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Speaker 4: or maybe someone who's bleeding to death in your car

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Speaker 4: and you're driving to the hospital. Would it be reasonable

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Speaker 4: to speed? Maybe it would be right. And so I

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Speaker 4: think what this case is really about is making sure

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Speaker 4: that courts consider the entire circumstances under which a service

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Speaker 4: provider operates before concluding that the service provider has to

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Speaker 4: cut off the service of infringing subscribers on pain of

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Speaker 4: becoming liable for their misdeed.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any inkling as to whether or not

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Speaker 1: the Supreme Court will take up this case? I take

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Speaker 1: it you think they should.

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Speaker 4: I think they should. If I knew what the Supreme

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Speaker 4: Court was going.

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Speaker 1: To do, I like to ask the question anyway.

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Speaker 4: I do not claim to have any crystal ball. I

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Speaker 4: do think that the existing Supreme Court pressed in the

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Speaker 4: area suggests that the four Circuit decision was incorrect and

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Speaker 4: that there is a reason for them to step in

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Speaker 4: here and correct the error. But whether they choose to

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Speaker 4: do it now or wait for another case to come

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Speaker 4: down the road, I mean, the justices have many reasons

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Speaker 4: for choosing the cases that they do.

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Speaker 6: Well.

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Speaker 1: It sounds like there are some good reasons here, So

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Speaker 1: we'll see what happens. Thanks so much for being on

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Speaker 1: the show. That's Professor Alfred jen of Boston College Law School.

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Speaker 1: Coming up next on The Bloomberg Lawn Show. Malibu, a

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Speaker 1: getaway for celebrities and tech and finance billionaires where two

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Speaker 1: neighbors are currently having a spat about sand. Turning now

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Speaker 1: to the sandbox feud. Malibu. The twenty one mile stretch

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Speaker 1: of beachfront is a getaway for celebrities, tech, and finance billionaires,

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Speaker 1: with the most expensive homes ever sold in California, a

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Speaker 1: state where the ultra rich often get involved in disputes.

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Speaker 1: The latest Malibu fight between neighbors is about stealing sand.

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Speaker 1: You heard that correctly stealing sand from the beach. Here

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Speaker 1: to tell us more about it is Bloomberg Legal reporter

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Speaker 1: Rachel Graff. Rachel tell us about the people who are

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Speaker 1: involved in this sandbox bat So.

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Speaker 7: The person who filed the suits is the son of

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Speaker 7: the co founder of private equity firm KKR. His name

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Speaker 7: is Jim Kolberg. He bought his beachfront home in Malibu

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Speaker 7: a few years ago for just north of fourteen million dollars,

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Speaker 7: and he is doing the owner of the baseball team

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Speaker 7: the Milwaukee Brewers, who is named Mark at Nasio and

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Speaker 7: at Nasio paid about twenty three million dollars back in

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Speaker 7: two thousand and seven for one of the properties and

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Speaker 7: then over six million dollars for a lot next door.

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Speaker 1: And explain the sort of mystique of Malibu.

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Speaker 7: So Malibu is a very wealthy neighborhood near Los Angeles.

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Speaker 7: I mean, it has some of the most expensive homes

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Speaker 7: in californ Ornia. It's known to be a getaway for

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Speaker 7: celebrities and these very wealthy executives. So it's a very

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00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,560
Speaker 7: well to do area on the California coast.

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Speaker 8: Well to do is almost an understatement. I mean, what

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00:25:16,480 --> 00:25:18,959
Speaker 8: Beyonce and jay Z bought a place there for one

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00:25:19,000 --> 00:25:21,320
Speaker 8: hundred and ninety million, and there may be a sale

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00:25:21,359 --> 00:25:23,960
Speaker 8: of a three hundred million dollar property there.

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Speaker 1: So now tell us what this feud is all about.

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00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:30,800
Speaker 7: At Nacio got a permit to repair the private sea

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00:25:30,880 --> 00:25:35,200
Speaker 7: wall on one of his parcels of land. So Colbert

447
00:25:35,320 --> 00:25:40,440
Speaker 7: is claiming that at Nacio is dredging up land on

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00:25:40,640 --> 00:25:44,600
Speaker 7: a public beach in Malibu for his own private youth,

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00:25:44,800 --> 00:25:49,240
Speaker 7: and that he's disturbing marine life in violation of certain

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00:25:49,480 --> 00:25:54,080
Speaker 7: environmental protections and also just causing nuisance to his neighbors,

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00:25:54,240 --> 00:25:56,080
Speaker 7: which include Colberg himself.

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Speaker 6: Would that be against the permit or they're claiming that

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00:25:58,560 --> 00:25:59,680
Speaker 6: that's against the permit.

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Speaker 7: So at Nafia was saying that he is doing everything

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00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:08,439
Speaker 7: in accordance with the permits, that his construction is in

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00:26:08,520 --> 00:26:12,800
Speaker 7: compliance with the permits. So that is what he's using

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00:26:13,160 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 7: as his defense, and whether that stands up in court

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00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:17,399
Speaker 7: is yet to be seen.

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Speaker 1: It doesn't seem like a difficult case to figure out

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00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:25,800
Speaker 1: what happened. There are pictures of a giant excavator excavating

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Speaker 1: the sand right.

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00:26:26,880 --> 00:26:30,600
Speaker 7: Yes, in the complaints there is a photo of a

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00:26:30,720 --> 00:26:35,879
Speaker 7: rather large excavator that appears to be on the beach.

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00:26:36,560 --> 00:26:40,119
Speaker 8: I mean, these are very very wealthy people. Yeah, I mean,

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Speaker 8: couldn't he just get sand from someplace else? Why would

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00:26:43,280 --> 00:26:44,840
Speaker 8: he have to excavate the beach?

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00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:47,800
Speaker 7: I can't tell you that. It seems like sometimes the

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00:26:47,880 --> 00:26:52,119
Speaker 7: wealthiest people are involved in some of the silliest disputes.

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00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:56,280
Speaker 1: And speaking about silly disputes, there was one involving Bill

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00:26:56,359 --> 00:26:57,679
Speaker 1: Gross a few years ago.

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00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 7: Yes, so just south of Malibu. Bill Gross has a

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00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:09,160
Speaker 7: property in Laguna Beach and he, according to court documents,

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00:27:09,200 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 7: had this statue or something to that effect in his

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00:27:12,400 --> 00:27:15,159
Speaker 7: yard that he wanted to protect. So he put netting

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00:27:15,280 --> 00:27:19,359
Speaker 7: above the fixture, and his neighbors sued, claiming that this

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00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:23,240
Speaker 7: netting blocked their view of the beach, for which I'm

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00:27:23,280 --> 00:27:26,520
Speaker 7: sure they paid a pretty penny. And so after that,

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00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:32,080
Speaker 7: Bill Gross started playing loudly outdoors the theme songs to

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00:27:32,480 --> 00:27:36,760
Speaker 7: Gilligan's Island. He claims that he just had an affinity

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00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:40,800
Speaker 7: for that theme song because in the opening shot of

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00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:43,879
Speaker 7: Gilligan's Island you can see another one of his properties,

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00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:46,719
Speaker 7: and so he just loved that theme song, and that

483
00:27:46,880 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 7: argument did not fly. He was ordered to stop doing

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00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:52,920
Speaker 7: that and got a bit of a stop on the

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00:27:52,960 --> 00:27:56,160
Speaker 7: risk from the judge there. So yeah, another again kind

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00:27:56,160 --> 00:28:01,000
Speaker 7: of silly dispute among very wealthy business men in a

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00:28:01,359 --> 00:28:02,560
Speaker 7: rich California neighborhood.

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00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: And then a fifteen year fight by venture capital billionaire

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00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 1: vinad Coast Law over public access to the beach.

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Speaker 7: Yes, so he's for fifteen years now been trying to

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00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:22,480
Speaker 7: block public access through his private property from I guess

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00:28:22,840 --> 00:28:27,240
Speaker 7: sturfers try to cut through his private property near San Francisco,

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00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:31,920
Speaker 7: and so he's trying to prevent those public people from

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00:28:32,000 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 7: what he says is his own private property.

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00:28:34,920 --> 00:28:37,400
Speaker 6: Is the beach in front of these homes public?

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00:28:37,840 --> 00:28:40,680
Speaker 7: The beach is public, It's broad beach.

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00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:41,840
Speaker 3: I believe the.

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00:28:41,800 --> 00:28:44,400
Speaker 7: Beach and it is a public beach, which is part

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00:28:44,400 --> 00:28:49,560
Speaker 7: of the dispute. Holberg is claiming that at Nacio is

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00:28:49,640 --> 00:28:54,000
Speaker 7: taking from this public beach for his own private youth

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00:28:54,280 --> 00:28:54,680
Speaker 7: And was.

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00:28:54,640 --> 00:28:58,880
Speaker 1: The Sandbox complaint filed with the California Coastal Commission or

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00:28:59,040 --> 00:28:59,960
Speaker 1: was it filed in court?

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00:29:00,400 --> 00:29:05,200
Speaker 7: The complaint was filed in a California state court, but

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00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:09,040
Speaker 7: prior to the filing of the complaint, Kolberg says that

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00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 7: he launched his own complaints with the California Coastal Commission,

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00:29:14,600 --> 00:29:17,520
Speaker 7: which he says has launched an investigation, but they have

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00:29:17,760 --> 00:29:20,880
Speaker 7: yet to do anything to actually stop at Nacio from

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00:29:20,880 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 7: taking this sand. So he did go to the California

510
00:29:23,400 --> 00:29:26,560
Speaker 7: Coastal Commission to try to get them to stop this behavior,

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00:29:27,200 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 7: and when they did not do so, he filed a

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00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,160
Speaker 7: complaint in the state court system.

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00:29:33,600 --> 00:29:36,160
Speaker 6: Is it alleged that this is still going on? Is

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00:29:36,280 --> 00:29:37,360
Speaker 6: dredging of the sand?

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00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:43,240
Speaker 7: It is, yes, and so the complaint is asking for

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00:29:43,480 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 7: a court order blocking at Nacio from taking any more

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00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:51,880
Speaker 7: sand and also requiring him to replace the sand that

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00:29:51,960 --> 00:29:52,760
Speaker 7: he's already taken.

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Speaker 1: I'm actually interested to see what happens here. Let us know, Rachel.

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Speaker 1: That's Bloomberg Legal reporter Rachel and that's it for this

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Speaker 1: edition of the Bloomberg Law Podcast. Remember you can always

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00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:07,280
Speaker 1: get the latest legal news by subscribing and listening to

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Speaker 1: the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and at Bloomberg dot Com,

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00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:15,760
Speaker 1: Slash podcast, Slash Law. I'm June Grosso and this is

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg