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Slingerland

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Everything posted by Slingerland

  1. My understanding is that judge allowed it to go forward but without specifically saying that CAE is necessarily liable for anything that happened at the predecessor organizations that had The Cadets as a product.
  2. Agreed, though the specific circumstances in this complaint (40 years ago, an employee whose actions took place at a non-corps event, etc) make it structurally pretty weak to begin with. I don't necessarily disagree that prevailing in this case might offer them a shield to keep others from pursuing their own actions, but Hopkins' abuses were so many in number and of more recent vintage that it's not quite an apples to apples situation.
  3. And YEA's Board in the 90s thru 2018 was notoriously - nearly criminally - lax in overseeing their organization's CEO in matters both personnel and budget related, all of which can be corroborated fairly easily.
  4. Even if CAE prevails, there are other individuals who would probably be willing to go after them for misdoings of at least one person we can all think of for similar behavior (edit: depending on what PA's statute of limitations on civil cases is), so they'd be at this for years to come. Any concept that could be seen as having any connection to any iteration of The Cadets is likely kaput.
  5. Interesting to consider that if and when DCI gets severed from the case whether that ends the whole thing, since CAE has nothing for the plaintiff to get, and I'm not sure who else they could go after (we're presuming that the individual alleged to have assaulted or statutoriy raped the plaintiff is no longer among the living, or has made themselves unfindable, so there'd be nothing to get there either).
  6. The judges are the least influential individuals in the judging process. Call a Famous Designer's work less than brilliant, and watch your ### get kicked from the Finals week judging schedule (it happens regularly). Why are some corps literally paying $60-140k to grownups to write or teach drum corps shows? Because they know that the individuals who can command those fees bring with them the influence over the judges to make sure the corps they work for is looked on favorably. Designers run the show, bolstered by some influential (aka "domineering") voices in the managers room at Januals. Any attempt to design a scoring system that would put more power into the hands of the performers and their performance that night will be voted down in a heartbeat.
  7. Absolutely it SHOULD have been (and was, in many cases). Two orgs I worked with in the 80s (also, no names) DID remove adults from roles in the org when it was reported they had crossed a line into inappropriate behavior. If this situation with Cadets was reported to Garfield management in 1982 and they failed to act, then that is 100% on that organization. DCI, on the other hand, had no mechanism for people to report these sorts of problems, and trusted the corps to be their own police force, believing that most corps were and would be run by adults with integrity. They are guilty of a failure of imagination when it comes to the seriousness of the situation, but the facts of the relationship between them and the performing corps is going to be demonstrated, and I'd imagine a jury would agree with that assessment. In case there's any confusion, I have zero issues with the complainant naming Garfield Cadets or their successors, which CAE essentially is. I still think the case for getting damages from a non-profit that shares one product with the old Garfield Cadets but is unconnected with the Garfield org in any other way is a bit of a stretch, but a jury will sort that out. Adding DCI, on the other hand, is an effort to create a scenario after the fact where there was culpability because of "shoulda" logic, which is more of a problem. No take on whether DCI's legal position re: the NJ Constitutionality argument goes anywhere.
  8. Times were different in one very important fact as it pertains to this claim; there was no policy or mechanism between DCI and the competing corps that gave DCI the power to oversee or manage anything when it came to internal operations of the competing corps. If they had no expressed power of oversight, it will be hard to blame them for not doing it. Should there have been? With the benefit of hindsight, yes, absolutely, but WAS there? No. Think about it; the Muchachos' corps director had literally done jail time for killing a member of Garfield. If DCI had the power to exclude him from a role in one of the competing corps, don't we think they would have used it? But the founders of the organization were concerned about a strong central organization getting into their individual businesses, and intentionally designed a weak central organization when it came to anything other than media sales and promotion. DCI's position will prevail if it gets in front of a jury because it should, because it's accurate.
  9. It's an appropriately aggressive response to the situation. I'd be more worried about them if they failed to appropriately defend themselves from a claim in which they played no role.
  10. I don't know a single person (not associated with BD) who thinks they had a viable shot of winning in 2016 vs the corps who did win. No idea how that show winds up in the final 4 when 2003 Cavaliers, 1993 Star, and 2015 Crown don't.
  11. Saw it once, only remember some train-y special effects. I'm sure the kids were great because they always are, but the show didn't make an impression. SCV and Cavaliers were sucking up most of the oxygen that season. Projecting that Cavaliers 2003 and Star 1993 will be the final head to head. Would have a hard time making a call on that one.
  12. That's not open to question - DCI was added because they're the only ones who have a pot to puke in. They're also highly unlikely to be found liable in any way, given the reported facts of the claim. If there's additional info that shows a direct or implied connection between DCI and the Finalist corps in 1982 regarding the hiring and managing of instructional staffers, then that's a different thing altogether. But I wouldn't count on any such info coming to light.
  13. Feh. Bingo, bourbon raffles, t-shirt sales (which ALSO have nothing to do with the core mission of any of the orgs), System Color instruments, Chinese Panda restaurant days (or whatever tf that restaurant chain is called) - if there's a net profit that drives costs down to the participants, it's fine. The 90s are dead, in the non-profit world. Thinking that anyone can go back to the days of 40% unearned/60% earned - which was the metric for many many years in the arts npo world - is a non-starter. Corporate donations for organizations that don't serve local kids is also going to be a hard sell - and unless and until the activity can figure out a way to package that in a way that makes sense to major corporate donors, it's a waste of effort. Corporate sponsorship is a much better area of focus than Gen Op support, since that's talking to the marketing people, not the corporate donor people, and the marketing folks understand brand building and affinity building and could give a rat's booboo about whether it's "building up people". It's what you'd hope DCI's new exec team is focused on, since selling the league should be their jobs number one, two, three, and fourteen.
  14. I'm gonna go a little Occam's razor on this one and spec that YEA got an offer from BD for the circuit that was under actual market value (because BD isn't stupid) yet enough to bridge them into a situation where they could wind-down their org and manage the transition of the drum corps to a new organization. The cruel irony here is that the timing literally could not have been worse, as the new org's lack of business history pre-Covid made them ineligible to apply for the SVOG funds that almost every other drum corps grabbed and used to prop themselves up in 21 and 22. That said, if they HAD had $700k-2m in SVOG funds in the bank, the complainant's attorney would know that, and it would make CAE more likely to have offered a significant six-figure settlement. Ironically, being flat bust now might be what gives them an outside shot of pulling this together in the long run, assuming they prevail in court and the complainant gets nothing.
  15. Most likely that Scott McC had one, and GH didn't.
  16. Absolutely, but if ever there was a compelling fundraising message to get out to their alums and other legacy fans, "we defended ourselves successfully and are now ready to get back in business" is a solid one. That said, their Board may just be exhausted at this point and ready to call it, so there's that.
  17. And if we put our collective thinking caps on, we can probably all come up with some usual suspects.
  18. Not a betting person, usually, but unless there are some major bombshells that get dropped during trial, the complainant has a lot more work in front of them proving culpability than the defendants do showing none, and I'd put the odds at 3-2 in CAE's favor.
  19. Cadets just put out a statement on social media distancing themselves. == Cadets Arts and Entertainment (CA&E) Board of Directors is aware of the recent announcements from Memphis Blues Performing Arts Association (MBPAA) and plans for their program offerings and renaming. CA&E feels it is important to state publicly that we have no formal or informal relationship with MBPAA, nor any plans for their programs. Our Board of Directors has not approved the sale, donation or loan of any assets of our organization to MBPAA. We wish them success in their future endeavors.
  20. Agreed, but I also suspect that the suit will not go in the complainant's favor.
  21. I think Cadets were removed from actual membership earlier this year, but I might be misremembering things. I also assumed the Memphis thing was an April Fools joke with bad timing, because it's such a bad idea, it's hard to imagine anyone seriously wanting to go there. Were I a Cadets alum, I'd be p___ssed off about this, as it pre-supposes that the actual Cadets are dead and gone, and even though they're dormant this year, there's still the capacity to relaunch once they're past the current legal travails. The Memphis move strikes me as more than a little presumptuous.
  22. If someone is into tribute bands, they may* be happy this summer. *reportedly
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