Judge Judy’s $47M Salary Isn’t Excessive, Appeals Court Agrees – The Hollywood Reporter

At a California appeals courtroom, CBS has once more triumphed in opposition to the expertise agent who thought Choose Judy Sheindlin’s $47 million yearly wage was humorous enterprise.

The suit got here from Richard Lawrence’ Insurgent Leisure Companions, the successor-in-interest to the company that initially packaged Choose Judy. For the company’s work, Lawrence was without end entitled to five p.c of Choose Judy‘s internet earnings, and additional, there can be no deductions for sums paid to different revenue contributors. As such, Sheindlin’s profitable wage provoked grievance. Was she taking wage in lieu of earnings with a view to screw Lawrence? An accounting skilled testified {that a} decade in the past, different high TV stars like Jay Leno and David Letterman had been getting not more than $28 million yearly and so something above this quantity was a disguised revenue payout. The litigation prompted Sheindlin to clarify herself in a Hall of Fame worthy deposition, and the trial decide in the end got here to the conclusion of no bad faith in the salary number since Sheindlin had CBS over a barrel.

On Friday, a state appeals courtroom affirmed.

“Any apportionment of Sheindlin’s wage to some type of revenue participation would, by definition, introduce threat that Sheindlin was unwilling to simply accept,” states the opinion. “In any occasion, now we have found no authority, and Insurgent presents none, obligating an entity to reclassify a performer’s wage as one thing aside from wage for accounting functions.”

This dispute is a part of a multilayered one which additionally contains spinoffs and a library sale.