CBS Sues Howard Stern

The next time someone complains about trivial legal action and frivolous lawsuits, he might just be talking about the CBS suit against former employee Howard Stern who is now on Sirius Satellite Radio. The company is suing its former superstar broadcaster for untold millions claiming that he “misappropriated millions of dollars worth of CBS Radio airtime for his own financial benefit, and fraudulently concealed his interest in hundreds of millions of dollars of Sirius stock while promoting it on the air.” Didn’t CBS listen to its own signal for 14 months?

The suit came out on earlier this week, and within hours, the legal talking heads on TV had decided that there was an extremely good chance that Mr. Stern would win the case and that summary judgment in his favor was a reasonable expectation. Much of the case turns on issues of fact: did Mr. Stern hide his stock interest in Sirius from CBS? Did CBS lose money as a result of Mr. Stern’s actions? The facts seem to back Mr. Stern’s position.

The legal idea of estoppel is what’s likely to sink the CBS suit. Turned into language that is heard outside of a courtroom, estoppel means that if CBS felt is was being wronged by Mr. Stern’s daily broadcasts in which he promoted Sirius and his own move to Sirius, it should have said something. In point of fact, CBS could very easily have told Mr. Stern that his show was cancelled, told him not to mention Sirius or not to talk about his future career move. It never did that.

Further, CBS seems to have gone out of its way to promote Mr. Stern even after he had informed the network of his departure. Not only did he get his own broadcast everyday, the wizards at the network booked him on “60 Minute” and David Letterman’s late night TV talk show.

So why would lawyers at CBS try to go forward with this case? Sometimes, lawyers are told to do things by clients in which they do not believe. CBS big-shot Les Moonves appears to be giving orders to his lawyers rather than taking their advice. According to Reuters, Mr. Stern said that he asked Moonves why he did not pull him off the air. “Les said, ‘I knew I could sue you later’,” Stern alleged. According to most lawyers who have looked at the case, he can’t.

© Copyright 2006 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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