Townsquare Media, Inc. v. Regency Furniture, Inc.
- Kenneth Karas
- 7:21-cv-04695
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 11
In Townsquare Media v. Regency Furniture, Judge Karas partly granted Townsquare’s reconsideration motion, denied Defendants’ motion, and vacated sanctions.
Townsquare Media, Inc., Regency Furniture, Inc., and Regency Management Services, LLC. Townsquare obtained summary judgment on the January 2021 Digital contract, revival of an account stated claim for three contracts, and vacatur of sanctions; the defendants’ reconsideration motion was denied.
What happened
Townsquare Media, Inc. v. Regency Furniture, Inc. concerns Townsquare’s claims that the defendants failed to pay for advertising services. After an earlier order on summary judgment, both sides asked Judge Karas to reconsider parts of that decision.
The court granted Townsquare’s motion in part and denied it in part. It granted summary judgment to Townsquare on the January 2021 Digital contract for $32,500, allowed Townsquare’s account-stated claim to continue for the January 2021 Broadcast, March 2021 Broadcast, and February 2021 Digital contracts, and vacated sanctions against Townsquare. It denied reconsideration of Townsquare’s breach-of-contract claims involving seven other contracts and three additional contracts. The court denied the defendants’ motion.
Judge Karas ruled that the defendants had not identified a proper basis to revisit the earlier decision, while Townsquare showed that the court had overlooked evidence concerning the January 2021 Digital contract. He also ruled that Townsquare had not received enough notice and opportunity to respond before sanctions were imposed. The court scheduled a later conference about sanctions and directed the clerk to terminate the pending motions.
The detailed version
- Townsquare Media, Inc. v. Regency Furniture, Inc. · No. 7:21-cv-04695
- Kenneth Karas
- Sept. 27, 2023
Background
Townsquare Media, Inc. sued Regency Furniture, Inc. and Regency Management Services, LLC, alleging breach of contract and account stated claims based on unpaid advertising-service contracts. An earlier order denied the defendants’ summary-judgment motion in full and granted Townsquare’s summary-judgment motion in part and denied it in part. Both sides then moved for reconsideration, which asks a court to revisit an earlier ruling because it overlooked controlling law or facts, received genuinely new evidence, or made a clear error.
Breach-of-Contract Claims
The defendants argued that Regency Management was merely a paymaster for other companies. The court rejected reconsideration of that issue because the defendants were repeating an argument the court had already considered and identified no new law or facts requiring a different result.
The court agreed, however, that it had overlooked evidence of a January 2021 Digital contract. The record contained the contract and related invoices, and the contract amount matched the $32,500 invoice Townsquare sought. The court therefore granted Townsquare summary judgment on both liability and damages for that contract, awarding $32,500.
The court denied Townsquare’s request to reconsider damages for the April 2021 Broadcast, May 2021 Broadcast, December 2019 Digital, January 2020 Digital, February 2020 Digital, March 2020 Digital, and May 2021 Digital contracts. Townsquare supplied explanations for differences between the contract amounts and the damages it sought, but the court found that those explanations and supporting materials had not been presented in the earlier summary-judgment proceedings. Reconsideration was not a proper way to introduce that previously available material.
The court also denied reconsideration of the breach-of-contract claims concerning the January 2021 Broadcast, March 2021 Broadcast, and February 2021 Digital contracts. Townsquare had not submitted the emails evidencing those contracts with its summary-judgment motion, and the court found no overlooked fact or clear error in its earlier conclusion that the evidence raised a genuine factual dispute about whether the contracts existed.
Account Stated Claim
The court granted Townsquare’s request to reconsider its account stated claim for the January 2021 Broadcast, March 2021 Broadcast, and February 2021 Digital contracts. It held that Townsquare could pursue both breach-of-contract and account-stated theories at this stage, although it could not ultimately recover the same damages twice. The account stated claim therefore survives as to those three contracts.
Sanctions
The court vacated the sanctions previously imposed on Townsquare. It found that Townsquare had not received sufficient notice and opportunity to respond to the sanctions request because the parties were not allowed to submit reply briefs on that issue, and the defendants’ summary-judgment motion did not make a clear sanctions request. The court will allow Townsquare an opportunity to be heard on sanctions under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37.
Disposition
The court granted Townsquare’s motion in part and denied it in part. Specifically, it granted the motion as to the January 2021 Digital contract, the account stated claim for the January 2021 Broadcast, March 2021 Broadcast, and February 2021 Digital contracts, and the sanctions ruling. It denied the motion as to the breach-of-contract claims for the April 2021 Broadcast, May 2021 Broadcast, December 2019 Digital, January 2020 Digital, February 2020 Digital, March 2020 Digital, May 2021 Digital, January 2021 Broadcast, March 2021 Broadcast, and February 2021 Digital contracts. The court denied the defendants’ motion for reconsideration and scheduled a telephone status conference concerning sanctions.
Read the full 11-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.