So if the wedding planner paid the bill AND Carl paid him directly does that mean he got paid twice?
If he was paid twice, I’m sure he will be a party to the suit.
So does anyone think they’ll make a TV movie from this, I’d watch;-)
Needs more drama, IMO, like someone getting murdered…
Or it could be turned into a comedy… 
Absolutely not. She comes across as shady and manipulative to me. She may be considered top drawer by the show biz contingent who tend to confuse money with class, but she seems like she was over her head when putting on an event for a family like the Carls. They seem to have given her a lot of rope for a couple who are so successful in their own business dealings but I do believe that they let things go too far (which they admit) in order to avoid upsetting their daughter as the wedding drew near. IMO, this Weiss woman took advantage of this fact and counted on the Carls to be too embarrassed to call her on her shenanigans. She was wrong about that and while I’m sure the Hollywood crowd will continue to hire her for their events, she shouldn’t expect that very many upper class east coast types will be using her after this debacle.
There was no reason to fly 20 of her staff to NYC for the event. Carl doesn’t like to be taken advantage of is my guess. Anything she did that was questionable and charged him, he probably would not pay…
You expect people to do the right thing. Great wealth is not an invitation for vendors to rob you blind.
All very silly. Just agree upfront. Agree to any change fees or overages in writing. Don’t pay out if your own pocket. Not terribly hard.
He refused to sign a standard contract with the photographer. That sounds odd to me. What did he expect?
I am wondering if that contract said something about the photographer not be liable if the drone fell on someone? Anyway I wouldn’t use the photographer.
Don’t some “standard” contracts allow photographers use of your name and pictures for their promotions/don’t have any privacy clauses? Could be why the parents wouldn’t sign, especially if they knew they were getting a write up in brides dot com…
Rich folks do have folks looking to take advantage all the time. My relative is an attorney to some very wealthy folks who have had to fire a lot of staff who would heavily pad their bills and many others who did a lot of underhanded stuff.
If the Carls have any attorneys on staff, they sure weren’t helping him work out his relationship with Weiss very well.
I would never hire this woman or firm, even if I could afford her. Seems like lots of blame to go around.
gosmom, that was probably the case - disagreement over who gets the copyright rights (usually the photographer keeps it but can transfer for a chunk of $$).
As far as privacy goes, it looks like NY has some pretty strong right of publicity laws, but photographers are excluded:
http://www.dmlp.org/legal-guide/new-york-right-publicity-law
^^That source says that the article has not been updated since 2014, so don’t take it as a legal advice.
If so, Weiss couldn’t have signed it.
BB, does that mean Weiss got the copyrights?
For me, no wedding in sight anytime soon but I would hire her. Signing the photographer’s contract flipped me. She sounds like someone going overboard to make sure the event go smoothly. It’s possible she paid vendors out of her own pocket to get the event going. I don’t understand why he refused to sign the contract. If you don’t like something in the contract, you negotiate. If unnegotiable, you find another photographer. You can’t just refuse to sign and expect the work will be done or get the photos taken by the said photographer. You can’t have it both ways, no signature? no photograph. I think he will lose the court case.
Another question; why did he pay the photographer directly when the contract was signed by Weiss? From the little I see, he sounds like a nut job. He is bypassing Weiss to get the photos forgetting that without Weiss, there may not have been any photos. Is he picking and choosing what to pay after the event, paying only the part of the event that turned out well? Would you agree to work for him?
Yes, I would agree to work for him, because I would not be trying to rip him off.
Whether or not he signed the “standard” contract, he paid the photographer in full because he agreed to the services in question which were performed–one gathers–to a reasonable standard. Why does the photographer have a problem? Because the photog is in thrall to Weiss for future work, and his product is her only hostage.
I wouldn’t hire the photographer either.
It’s unclear how litigious Carl is, in the first place, regardless of discussions and honest intent.
Paying the photog could have been an end run.
And I wouldn’t hire Weiss because a) not my style and b) not my budget. Otherwise, she does seem to have satisfactory relationships with many clients.
I don’t expect to ever be in a position to be able to hire someone like Mindy Weiss. And if I won the lottery tomorrow, I can’t see myself spending $3 million on a wedding. But if I suddenly won the lottery and decided to pay $3 million for a wedding, I would not hire Weiss.
Bernard Carl is an attorney. As such, he probably reads the contracts he signs. It’s an occupational hazard. Not only is it what you are trained to do, but every lawyer is aware that, should the contract result in litigation, a judge isn’t going to buy the “I signed it without reading it” or " I didn’t understand what I was reading" excuse from a lawyer.
I think the videographer probably hired a lawyer to draft a “standard”–the word he used–contract for him. That contract was probably pretty one sided. If the videographer was from California, it probably said that California law would apply and that any suit for non-performance had to be brought in California. Carl’s attitude probably was “if you are coming to New York to do business with me, you should be willing to have any litigation be here in New York.” It may have said that even if we accidentally destroy the video you still are responsible for our travel and hotel expenses. It may say if the drone we are using crashes and injures someone or property, you agree to hold us harmless. Use your imagination.
So, Carl, a lawyer, reads it and won’t sign. He wants to renegotiate. It may have been about the price, but it’s possible–I do NOT claim to know–that the changes had nothing to do with the price, but with the other clauses.The videographer probably isn’t willing to make changes. First, he doesn’t want other clients to find out those clauses can be changed. Second, he knows he’s dealing with an attorney and probably doesn’t feel comfortable negotiating with him. Third, he probably isn’t willing to spend the money to hire an attorney to negotiate with Carl.
I suspect you can get another videographer with short notice before a wedding. I doubt there’s a lot of advance preparation that needs to go into the job weeks in advance as there is with a caterer or designer. And Carl may have felt that if the videograher wouldn’t change the contract, he’d just hire someone else.
At that point, Mindy Weiss stepped in and signed the contract. The videographer accepted her signature and went ahead with the filming. Then, Carl pays him the full amount he’d asked for, but the videographer won’t give him the film. (It’s not clear in the articles whether the videographer cashed Carl’s check. )Weiss probably was less worried about signing it than Carl. For example, if the dispute was the jurisdiction clause–they are common–she’s in LA so it doesn’t matter.
Weiss had absolutely no right to sign the contract. To argue that Carl made her his agent to sign a contract he wasn’t willing to sign himself is preposterous. Weiss should have said “If you aren’t willing to sign the contract, he’s not going to film the wedding. You either go without any video or you find someone yourself.”
I would NEVER in a million years hire someone I knew had done what Weiss did–signing a contract I had made clear I would not sign and arguing she was my "agent."NEVER.
The issue isn’t preparations, but simple availability. Many photographers book so far in advance (as we see on the current wedding thread.)
From NY Post: "Dangcil [the photog] told The Post that Bernard Carl refused to sign his standard contract, and Weiss, worried there would be no videographer, signed it instead.
“At that point, she became my client,” Dangcil said, adding that the wedding planner paid the bill.
Carl said he paid Dangcil directly."
This is all what’s supposed to be clarified in court docs and procedures.
I can see that if Carl is litigious- and a smug, self-important type- he might dismiss any little guy’s efforts to present a standard contract. I can also see that Weiss, who is responsible for the whole net presentation, would indeed proceed on a contract, not leave it to, “You find one, Dad.” But, without clarification in her own contract, at her own risk.
Don’t forget the part where the son in law claims payments were sent, but misdirected. That’s no excuse.
I might be wrong but I thought the photographer and the videographer were two separate people.
The way I read it the photographer was paid separately by Carl under a different contract and there isn’t 'a problem there. He got paid by Carl. They obviously have tons of photos of the wedding.
It’s the video done by a separate entity that is in question. Only the video is “hostage”.
I’m sure to Carl (in one form or another no matter whose name is on the contract–it might not even matter) he paid for the video–since that is not an line item under dispute.
She just decided to keep the video in order to make him pay other items that ARE under dispute like the travel costs.
At any rate, two sides. We are just speculating (but it is fun to hash it out as a hypothetical).
Great analysis. Unless Weiss was authorized by the Carls to sign vendor contracts on their behalf, she exceeded her authority. The court will sort this out. Looks like Carl can counterclaim a lot of stuff…
I’m not really doing a complete legal analysis. (I’m not saying that I think the Carls will win in court. Believe me, I can argue the other side.) I am just telling the truth. i.e., I personally would NEVER hire anyone who did what Mindy Weiss did to the Carls. Based on what has been reported in the newspapers, she exceeded her authority. I personally would NOT hire someone I knew had exceeded the authority given to her by another client.
Oh, while I don’t think it’s relevant to the issue of authority, to me it’s laughable to suggest that the Beverly Hills based --I googled–videographer couldn’t be replaced. The Knot lists 219 wedding videographers in NY. There are probably more who aren’t listed. I think they could have found a replacement. I seriously doubt that the norm, even among the jet set crowd, is to fly 3 people in from LA to film a NY wedding.