Hackett v. Interscope Records, Inc.

Background

Plaintiffs Anastas Theodore Hackett and Traveling Man Productions, LLC filed the complaint on March 4, 2022. After plaintiffs did not timely file proof of service for any defendant, the court ordered them to serve the summons and complaint by June 13, 2022, or show cause—give a reason—why the case should not be dismissed for failure to prosecute, meaning failure to move the case forward.

Plaintiffs later filed an affidavit stating that Interscope Records Inc. and Chinsea Linda Lee had been served on April 22, 2022. The summons stated that their responses were due May 13, 2022. No responses were filed. Plaintiffs also did not file proof of service for ATAL Music Limited or Alexandre Escolier.

Rulings

The court ordered that any motion for entry of a default judgment against Interscope Records Inc. and Chinsea Linda Lee be filed by July 14, 2022. A default judgment is a judgment requested because a defendant did not respond. The court directed plaintiffs to follow its procedures for seeking that judgment and warned that failing to file the motion by the deadline may result in dismissal of the action for failure to prosecute under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 41(b).

The court dismissed the action against ATAL Music Limited and Alexandre Escolier for failure to prosecute, without costs to any party and without prejudice to restoring the action to the court’s calendar if plaintiffs applied to restore it by July 14, 2022. The order states that if no such application was made by that date, the dismissal would be with prejudice. Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil did not decide the underlying claims in this order.