He paid you to put together a video.
There's no video.
He's been harassing me, defaming my character.
-That is incorrect. -What did you do with his money?
-I told him, I spent-- -[Tanya] "I spent it."
-Where's the deal, then? Where's the deal? -The contract!
I could present a piece of paper that says
"Beyoncé said she's coming over,
and she's gonna sing at my house, see?"
[announcer] Today on Tribunal Justice.
[theme music playing]
[announcer] This case was filed in New Britain, Connecticut.
Your Honor, this is case number 1147 on the calendar
in the matter of Wilcox versus Flores.
All parties have been sworn in. You may be seated.
[Adam] Mr. Wilcox, you're a music artist.
And the defendant runs a record label.
The defendant approached you, according to your complaint,
about doing a joint project with a musician from the U.K.
The project included you singing a song
with this U.K. artist
and shooting a video, is that right?
-Yes. -[Adam] You gave the defendant
$5,000 to put the project together.
He took your money,
but the song and the video was never made.
-Yes. -[Adam] Now, according to you,
the defendant admitted that he spent the money
on living expenses and other things
besides the project, is that right?
-Yes. -[Adam] And you are suing him
for the return of your $5,000.
-That's correct. -[Adam] Mr. Flores,
in your answer, you say that the plaintiff
only invested $2,250.
-Not 5,000. -Correct.
And that you scheduled a project,
but it got canceled because of the pandemic.
-Yes, sir. -[Adam] And you cannot return
the plaintiff's money, because you did acknowledge
that you spent it on things other than his project.
-Correct. -[Adam] And instead
of giving him back his money,
over the last several years,
you gave him other things in its stead,
such as merchandise and other items.
-Yes. -[Adam] And therefore,
you owe him nothing.
-Correct. -[Adam] In addition,
you filed a countersuit in this matter,
-also for $5,000, is that right? -[Jason] Yes.
[Adam] The basis of your counterclaim
is that the plaintiff here defamed you and your business
on social media, and to others within the music industry.
-Yes. -[Adam] And that he released
the music video.
-Yes. -[Adam] Which had been created...
-It's a separate-- -...in a separate issue from the first,
from his case against you.
So he released this other music video without authority.
And as a result of that,
he devalued the return on your investment,
because it was put out there without authority.
It was put out there free.
And no one's gonna pay you for something
that they can get for free on the Internet.
Absolutely correct.
Mr. Flores, you put this deal together with the plaintiff
and this U.K. artist, right?
-[Jason] Yes. -Where's the contract?
Right, there was never a contract.
There was never a formal agreement of time frame.
This guy was my best friend,
and we did a lot of, you know, stuff together,
projects together, where there was no paperwork
because it was just something that we would throw together,
and then I could make it work and make it happen through
my dealings with the other stuff I do in the music business.
There was nothing in writing regarding a venue location,
the date of the engagement, the agreed-upon price,
-payment schedule, advertising. -Oh, I had all that.
[Adam] No, hold on.
Was there a written agreement or--
When I say written agreement, by the way...
[Jason] Yeah.
...it doesn't have to be a formal signed contract.
-It should be, as you well know. -[Jason] Right.
But I'll take an email that includes
the terms and conditions that I just mentioned,
or a text message.
So you didn't provide him with a contract,
there are no emails.
There's emails talking back and forth.
[Adam] Show me them.
Show me the emails that outline
the terms and conditions
regarding those items I just listed.
-There's a lot of stuff here. -[Adam] So just so you know,
look, I got it.
-[Jason] Okay. -It's not there.
There's no email from you, no text message
that outlines the terms and conditions of the contract.
There is an email in what I submitted,
where we're talking about the project costing $4,500,
that it would take place at my festival.
But if it was $4,500, he says that he gave you 5,000.
But you're saying it couldn't have been 5,000--
[Jason] No, it--
[Adam] Hold on, because, one,
the whole project didn't cost 5,000,
and two, you have records indicating
that it was only 2,250 you took from him.
[Jason] Yeah.
[Adam] Let me turn now to the plaintiff.
Mr. Wilcox, you show me proof of $5,000 worth of payments
that you made to the defendant
specifically for the U.K. artist collaboration.
-Is this one $2,000? -Yes.
-[Adam] Okay, 2020. -Yeah, I have that one,
and another one that says 250,
and that's the only two payments.
Hold on. We have $2, 400 for salad.
Now, just so you know,
salad is often another term used for marijuana.
And I know that there are prior emails
that you had with the defendant
in which you refer to marijuana being consumed.
I'm not disparaging either one of you,
but you know that there has been past dealings with you
where marijuana, that's legal now, right, was provided.
And that is consumed at shows, right?
Mm-hmm.
So on this $2,400 receipt that says "for salad,"
you want me to take this to mean it was money given by you
to the defendant for this U.K. artist collaboration.
I'm not asking anyone to believe that's exactly what it's for.
Hold on. The next one I have, this one for $500.
But this says for something else.
"Feechure."
[Travis] It says "feature," spelled comically
because after a while we just, as friends with an agreement,
we would put funny labels on the transactions.
[Adam] This $500 receipt, then,
that you sent to the defendant,
that does not indicate it was specifically earmarked
for the U.K. artist collaboration,
is problematic for you.
There's no contracts. This was based on trust.
So I have to do everything I can to prove my side.
[Adam] I get that, and you provided us,
though, unfortunately, with a receipt that does not allow us--
Because we don't know who you are, right?
You could be the greatest guy in the world.
You could be the kind of guy who's never once
in your entire life ever told a lie,
never mind in a courtroom where you swore to tell the truth.
But it's still a matter of proof.
You know, by the way, that the defendant's position all along,
all along, not just today,
but you know because you have a relationship with him,
was that you never gave me 5,000.
That you only gave me $2,250, right?
-That is incorrect. -[Adam] So you're saying
that you never knew that it was his position
that the amount of money that you gave to him
for this collaborative effort was $2,250?
No, I'm positive I gave him the full amount.
So let's then go to defendant's exhibit number 6.
Is that what you wanted to show me, sir?
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
Let's get this one going.
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
♪ If you ask anybody who knows me ♪
♪ They'll say I'm a little bit inhumane ♪
♪ Life giving everyone lemons ♪
♪ I'm the only one making lemonade ♪
♪ Get to switchin'... for brains ♪
♪ You'll be lucky If you limp away ♪
♪ With your crippled frame and witness my dang... ♪
You put this up on your Facebook?
-Yes. -Why'd you do that?
[theme music playing]
[announcer]Travis Wilcox claims his former business partner
and friend, Jason Flores, lied to him about the chance
to record music with a popular artist.
Jason is countersuing Travis for releasing a music video
without his permission.
All right, so the plaintiff tells you, "I owe a thousand dollars still"?
-Yes, for the U.K. artist. -[Adam] For the U.K. artist.
-Yeah. Yeah. -[Adam] Right?
"I owe 1,000 still for the U.K. artist."
You say, "1,275, I believe."
The plaintiff then responds,
"I was scrolling through Cash App trying to find it.
Found $2,250."
The 2,250 is what he's saying is what he found.
[Adam] Is that right?
-[Jason] Yeah, that's-- -[Adam] Hold on.
-That is right. -[Travis] Yes, and then
the additional was probably paid in cash or in person
with no dialogue to...
Well, you never provided that to us, did you,
in the proof that I just read to you a moment ago,
which was your opportunity
to provide us with all the evidence
that you claim existed, establishing the $5,000.
You didn't provide anything about that cash.
I provided everything I could find.
Okay. I'm gonna let Judge Acker continue, thank you.
-Okay. -[Tanya] Thank you, Judge Levy.
Mr. Wilcox, you reached out to the U.K. artist.
-Yes. -[Tanya] When did you reach out?
-About a year ago. -[Tanya] How did you find him?
I found him on Instagram.
And so you went on Instagram, and according to your complaint,
you blew up his social media until he paid attention to you.
Yeah, he wouldn't respond to messages,
so I went onto his comments and I--
You know, I'm pretty emotional about what's happening,
-so I let him know that. -And what did you say to him?
I told him that a company had took $5,000 of my money
to put me in a music video with him,
and I have not heard from him in two years.
The U.K. artist replied
he's never heard of him or his festival.
[Tanya] So you've submitted into evidence
emails that you contend are communications
between you and this U.K. artist.
And in these messages,
this person tells you that they never heard of him.
Exactly. He told me he's never heard of Jason,
and that he has no idea what's happened with my money.
He doesn't have it. And then, you know,
I had responded to him, saying he said he never heard of you.
Mr. Flores, when the plaintiff advises you
that he's been in touch with the U.K. artist,
the U.K. artist that he paid you money
-to put the show together with. -[Jason] Yeah.
And he says that this artist is advising him
that he never met you.
One of these messages from the artist is,
"I don't know what happened between you two.
I ain't booked for no show. I ain't doing no show.
I don't have whatever money you've sent to someone.
That is not my booking agent.
Not my manager.
Someone I have never in my life met."
So the plaintiff is saying, "I reached out to the artist.
He never heard of you.
The person who signed the contract
may not even be this artist's manager."
-What's your response? -[Jason] My response is that
the artist is giving him bad information.
[Tanya] Let's just look at the facts on the ground.
He's paid you some amount of money that's in dispute
in order to put together a project
-with him and this artist. -[Jason] Yeah.
And this artist says, "I don't know who this guy is.
I've never heard of you."
What do you do to put the plaintiff at ease?
Because if it's me
and someone's like, "You made it all up,"
I'm gonna say, "No, no, no.
Here are my communications with the artist.
-Here's the background." -[Jason] For sure.
-So, what do you do? -The reason why--
And he just said that we haven't talked for two years.
Right now, you just seem like you lied.
You took his money, you didn't give him anything for it.
And there's an artist who you're supposed to be
putting a deal together with who says he never heard you.
So instead of getting your back up here,
why don't you explain what you told the plaintiff
to put his concerns at ease?
Well, I tried to. I tried to tell him that I did have dealings with them.
When did you tell him that?
[Jason] He didn't hear from the U.K. artist
until a year after he spent, like, stalking and harassing me.
-What did you do with his money? -[Jason] I told him.
-I spent-- -[Tanya] "I spent it."
-I spent it. -[Tanya] You spent it.
You spent it on things
having nothing to do with the purposes
for which he gave it to you.
And then now, when he says to you--
-Yes, I did. -[Tanya] Where? Where?
Where's the deal, then? Where's the deal?
-The contract! -[Tanya] So you suggest--
You better stop raising your voice at me, seriously,
-and take it down a notch. -Okay.
Because I will throw you out of here easily.
[Jason] Okay.
If your only evidence of communications
between you and this artist
is the contract signed by someone who's not the artist,
why should the plaintiff believe that anything has happened?
He paid you to put together a video.
There's no video.
There's no communications with the artist. There's nothing.
There is communications with the artist.
This is how you deal with an artist.
You don't just call the artist.
If I want to talk to someone famous,
you don't just pick up the phone and call them.
You talk to their agents, you talk to a booking agency, a manager.
That's exactly right, and this artist says
that the person with whom you were in contact
was never his booking agent.
So let's see if you do better with your countersuit.
Why are you suing him for $5,000?
Because he released a video he had no authority to release.
-Correct. -[Tanya] When did he make the release?
-October 28th. -And where'd he release it?
[Jason] On his Facebook and YouTube.
And I understand your witness here, who--
You participated in this music video?
Yes, I'm the director of the music video.
And our witness on Chime, Mr. Carey.
Were you involved with this video
that the defendant says
that the plaintiff released improperly?
I produced the instrumental,
and I was on the music side.
So I wasn't involved with the video,
but it's my intellectual property on the music side,
as that hadn't been released either.
[Tanya] And so, Mr. Flores,
how did the plaintiff come to acquire this video?
When you work on a project,
you get, like, a test version to take notes.
You were still working on it. It was a rough cut.
[Jason] Still working on it, correct. Yeah.
I understand we have the video here.
Let's look at it.
[hip hop music playing]
[wolf howling]
♪ Payin' DayZ, DayZ ♪
♪ Everyone around know I'm crazy ♪
♪ I-I-I'll be in your dreams so you can't sleep ♪
♪ Rapper, rapper everywhere, rapper gonna pay me ♪
♪ I'mma have myself a smile while I think about ♪
♪ All the things I have to my advantage ♪
♪ While you live without ♪
♪ I don't have to rap, I just live it out ♪
♪ I ain't rappin' now, I'm just talkin' ♪
♪ I just drip it out ♪
♪ I'm not living long, time is ticking ♪
♪ Hide the music drugs ♪
♪ Ice commissioner drippin' life into your car ♪
♪ Need the Heimlich if you dining ♪
♪ I'm a noid, liquid nitrogen for blood ♪
♪ Try to rock my chain get spina bifida ♪
♪ If you ask anybody who knows me ♪
♪ They'll say I'm a little bit inhumane ♪
♪ Life giving everyone lemons ♪
♪ I'm the only one making lemonade ♪
♪ Get to switchin'... for brains ♪
♪ You'll be lucky if you limp away ♪
♪ With your crippled frame and witness my dang... ♪
You put this up on your Facebook?
-Yes. -Why'd you do that?
Once I found out that all trust had been broken
and contracts were violated--
You just said, "I'm gonna just double down."
-[Travis] No... -"He took my money,
I'm going to release someone else's intellectual property
because I'm mad."
No, James had told me that no one entity owns this song.
Did you own it outright?
I have partial ownership.
-[Tanya] Partial ownership. -And there was no agreement--
Which means you do not own it outright,
and you know gosh-darn well
that you did not have any right to publicly release
and to put on your social media platforms
a jointly owned intellectual property project.
-You know that. -They sent me a link,
and there was nothing with the link that said--
So you're now suggesting here, as an artist,
when you do a project with other artists,
that unless somebody says,
"Don't put it out on you own social,"
you're not sure if you don't have that right?
[announcer] Coming up on Tribunal Justice.
You actually say that "I lived off of his money."
-[Jason] Yeah, he knew that. -For a year.
He knew. I told him. I was open.
And it wasn't "live off for a year."
It was $2,500.
So that 2,500, why would that not be due back to him?
[theme music playing]
You must think I am dumb, seriously.
That was the dumbest thing that you've said
since you started this case.
He did a lot to help you with your countersuit,
because on his claim,
all you're doing is showing words on paper.
I could present a piece of paper that says
"Beyoncé said she's coming over,
and she's gonna sing at my house, see?"
I understand.
[Tanya] Judge DiMango?
I never see anything about $2,250.
All I see are conversations or text messages
between the plaintiff and you for $5,000.
You are, like, enamored with the whole notion
that this U.K. artist is gonna rap with you.
I mean, you are just over the top with this.
Yes.
And it comes across in the messages to you.
And you're saying how famous he is
and how popular he is,
and how you work out these things where,
you know, you get a real popular artist
and you get somebody who's just, you know,
coming into the business.
And they work together,
and that gives you fame and glory.
And you say to him, "You're my North Star."
That's him, right? "You're my North Star."
You just want to be famous, and you kind of got blinders on.
You know, that happens often with people.
All they can see is the North Star.
-Yeah. -And then they follow Orion or something.
You know, they're just not following the right star.
I also asked multiple times for proof of where my money went,
which he would fail to give me.
[Patricia] Yeah, I know.
You then, through all of this,
say that the 2,500 that he gave you
in reliance on your trying to work things out,
you actually say that "I lived off of his money."
-Yeah, he knew that. He knew. I told him. -For a year.
I was open. And it wasn't "live off for a year."
It was $2,500,
and I think 500 of that I put towards the show deposit,
and then I put another 500 of my--
So that 2,500, why would that not be due back to him?
It was, and I agreed that it was due back to him.
And I gave him several things to please him.
I gave him a bus, I gave him--
-That bus was not even his. -[Patricia] Right.
You say, "Keep the bus. You could probably get $3,000."
[Jason] Yeah, I wanted to give him--
So you're acknowledging that you owe him something,
but you want him to start selling things.
Did you give him a title to the bus?
Did you give him any documents for it so he could sell it?
No, you could sell it without a title because it's so old.
-[Travis] You cannot do that. -No. You need something.
Even if it's a salvage title.
You can't just sell something.
The bus, I bought it,
and what we did was we registered it
in my driver's name.
I told them a year ago
that if they don't want the bus
to give it back to me so I could sell it.
And I'll give them the money.
Okay, but you acknowledge that there's a repayment due here.
But then they didn't return the bus.
[Patricia] Okay, now let me stop you.
In the counterclaim, you're asking for 5,000.
That's the video that you're saying that he leaked.
And that's why you're out this money?
-Yes. -Just tell me why you did that.
Well, James told me there was no sole owner of the song.
And after two years with no contracts of no contact,
there's no agreement to a release.
So basically you were like,
"The hell with this, I'm gonna engage in self-help.
I didn't get what I want,
and I'm basically going to do what I can to promote myself."
-Is that kind of what you...? -[Travis] Well, it was more so
the fact I didn't hear from him,
so it broke down to I paid for something, he gave it to me,
-and I used it. -[Patricia] All right.
He keeps saying he didn't hear from me.
He spent the last two years making fake pages
with my likeness, saying incredibly vulgar things.
Attacking my family, my friends. Attacking my producer, James.
[Patricia] So you think you're out five.
You think you're out five.
What we have is a lot of conversation back and forth
between a lot of different people,
most of whom are not here other than you.
[Adam] Yeah, Mr. Carey.
You say Wilcox has potentially devalued
the return on investment
for everyone who has worked on this project.
It is my opinion, yes.
[Adam] And what is that opinion based on?
In other words, did you have a forensic accountant
review the expenses that were incurred
involving this project?
Not to my knowledge.
I am just the producer on this one.
So that would be not my purview.
Typically speaking, when music is leaked,
the reason it's perceived as a problem
is because of the fact that it gets out
in a form that isn't finalized.
If it's spread around
to the potential audience beforehand,
they hear the not-ready version,
and they form an opinion, and they don't come back to it.
So there is no way to give that a quantifiable figure.
But I think it's sort of standard music industry practice
not to leak songs,
for fear of it ruining the release of the final product.
[Adam] I could not agree with you any more.
The problem is that Mr. Flores failed to produce a contract.
Your testimony based upon your history
in the industry is appreciated, but it's speculative,
and we're not allowed to base a finding on speculation.
Thank you. I have nothing further there.
[Patricia] We are gonna retire to deliberate, thank you both.
[Byrd] Court now stands in recess.
Parties are excused.
[theme music playing]
I'm gonna start with his counterclaim.
I think it has to be entirely dismissed for two reasons.
He's claiming two things.
He's looking for $5,000 for defamation.
But he admitted he took the plaintiff's money
and spent it on things other than the project.
Anything that the plaintiff would have said about him
regarding stealing his money
and then offering him a broken-down van in return,
as far as I'm concerned,
the defendant got everything that he deserved.
And despite Mr. Carey's testimony
regarding the devaluation of the song itself,
it's speculative.
Yes, we can all agree that there is some form
of a devaluation of that intellectual property.
But it's the defendant's burden to prove what that is.
And he completely failed to do so.
So for those reasons,
I believe that his counterclaim needs to be dismissed.
Turning to the plaintiff's case against the defendant
for $5,000 for failing to put the initial project together,
because the contract was non-existent
and it was this amorphous understanding,
what we do know is that the plaintiff was unable
to establish $5,000 worth of damages.
The defendant acknowledges that it was $2,250 was paid.
There are text messages in which the plaintiff
actually confirms that.
So I believe that the plaintiff is entitled to an award
of damages of $2,250.
Let me go back to the countersuit for a moment,
because I agree completely with everything you said,
except your inclination to dismiss
because I would almost be inclined
to treat is as something of a request for punitive damages,
because I do think that the plaintiff
had no business doing that.
I think he acted maliciously in doing it.
However, I argued my way out of the punitive damages
because you still have to have some actual damages.
And I don't know what his actual damages are.
I'm not gonna say a dollar, and then 4,999.
So I'm still on the fence about whether or not
there is something there.
But even as I'm thinking out loud...
Well, I don't like him,
so that could be an actual damage
if you want to look at it that way.
I found that I wasn't gonna listen to it anymore.
In all of our other cases where we have agreed
to impose those punitive damages,
they've always included cases
where the party requesting the damages
has come to us with clean hands.
-And in this case... -Very good point.
...the defendant hasn't come to us with clean hands.
Very good point, Adam.
And I like to reserve those instances of us rewarding
and modifying, perhaps, requests for punitive damages
to those cases where people really have been harmed
and have done nothing wrong.
And even here,
I can give the plaintiff a little bit of rope,
only because he's out of money, this guy's not in touch with him,
and he's trying to exploit whatever assets he has.
-Wasn't right, but you got me. -I agree.
With the counterclaim, any damages from that,
other than my not listening anymore,
would really be speculative.
So I would dismiss the counterclaim in its entirety.
And with regard to the main complaint,
I would return the $2,250.
-[Adam] Great. -Onboard.
[theme music playing]
Court is back in session.
Parties are reminded you're still under oath.
-[Adam] Thank you, Byrd. -[Byrd] Mm-hmm.
We are a unanimous bench in the following sense.
We'll start with the counterclaim.
In order to receive an award of damages,
the damages cannot be speculative.
You put a $5,000 figure on your counterclaim.
Some of it was for defamation,
which quite frankly falls on its face
because, as you indicated, the money that was given to you
by the plaintiff was used for things other than the project.
I know what you said, sir. You said that he knew about it.
He says he didn't know about it.
If he did not know about it,
then what you did was steal his money.
And then it took him two years to get it back.
So anything that he could have said and would have said
about your poor business acumen and practices,
it was, in his eyes,
and anyone's objective eyes looking at it, truthful.
So it's the unanimous verdict of the court
that your counterclaim be dismissed.
With respect to your initial claim for $5,000,
you have to prove that you made those payments.
We are willing to accept $2,250 that you gave him.
So the judgment of the court is in your favor for $2,250.
Thank you both.
-Thank you. -[Byrd] Case is now concluded.
Parties are excused. You may step out.
I should have kept a better record, I guess.
I didn't expect this to be in a court, you know?
I guess contracts are the overall lesson today.
So if he's gonna provide that, maybe I'll provide my services.
When you're trying to make it in the music industry,
and, like, you're looking to just get in somewhere quickly,
it's like, duh, money works.
I'm hoping for the best outcome for everything.
I hope that we could not have any hostility in the future.
I'm happy with the outcome.
[announcer] Have you been cheated?
Let Tribunal Justice decide your case.
Find us on social media at Tribunal Justice.
[theme music playing]