Fixed fights

- Illustration by Adam Vieyra

Instead, Woods bought his way into a far bloodier arena than the Octagon: federal court.

The March 7, 2009, Jackson-Jardine fight ended after three rounds and, without a knockout or submission hold, was decided in Jackson’s favor. Woods’ legal battle over showing the fight at Far East Rock (now The Salty Frog) is more than a year old, and no one seems ready to tap out.

A private investigator posing as a Coors-swilling patron recorded the fight-night scene at the bar on a handheld video camera. Months later, Woods received a letter from the investigator’s employer, lawyer Thomas Riley, threatening a $100,000 lawsuit on behalf of Joe Hand Promotions, the company that licenses the commercial broadcasts of Ultimate Fighting Championship matches.

“At first, I thought there must be some mistake,” Woods says. “I had no idea anything had been done incorrectly.”

If a venue wants to broadcast a pay-per-view event using DirecTV, the manager must negotiate the broadcast with the company that controls the distribution rights. Because Far East Rock’s DirecTV account was registered incorrectly as residential, rather than commercial as Woods had asked, he was never given the option to contact Hand.

Since 2006, thousands of bar owners across the country have had to step into the ring with Riley, an aggressive attorney based in South Pasadena who specializes in pay-perview theft. In late 2008, his firm began focusing on Southern California and has so far filed lawsuits against almost 90 bars in the San Diego area—from Yokozuna’s Sushi Bar in Chula Vista to Mr. Peabodies in Encinitas—on behalf of Joe Hand and J &J Sports Productions, which controls the rights to HBO boxing matches. In the last three months alone, Riley has filed 21 lawsuits against area bars.

Riley did not return numerous calls to his office, and Joe Hand declined to comment for this story.

“We need to do this to protect our clients who go and buy [the fights] legitimately, so it doesn’t hinder sales at their bars,” says Joe Gagliardi, president of J & J Sports Productions, based in Campbell, Calif.

Gagliardi says he’s heard all manner of excuses from bar owners during the course of his four-decade career in boxing promotion. The only thing he says shocks him is that people keep stealing pay-per-view programs. It used to be, bar owners would use illegal devices to decode signals; these days, it’s more common for bar owners to set up a residential account with a provider like DirecTV, then use it for commercial broadcasts.

“We would certainly like to have those companies as costumers,” he says. “The worst part is, what they would pay for the license fee is far less compared to what [they have to pay under] federal statutes if they get caught.”

Federal law allow companies like Gagliardi’s to collect between $1,000 and $10,000 in damages for each violation, though a bar-owner who “willfully” breaks the law for commercial gain can be forced to pay up to $100,000. (It would have cost Woods between $800 and $925 to show UFC 96 legally, according to the Joe Hand rate card.)

“Some people do mis-designate the account or pirate the signal on purpose, but in my experiences, that’s not what most of the cases have going on,” says Matthew Paré, a Chula Vista attorney representing Woods and seven other clients under attack by Riley’s firm. “It’s usually something more innocent than that, but, unfortunately, the plaintiffs are able to take advantage of the statutes. Regardless of if there’s no ill intent on the part of the bar owner, they’re still liable.”

A court may reduce the damages as low as $250 for bar owners who were unaware and had no reason to believe they were breaking the law. Even then, the law says that the bar owner must pay his opponents’ legal fees.

“If you defend it to the end and require a trial—the whole time the attorney fees are accruing and accruing,” Paré says.

Attorney Sergio Feria, who’s defending Chula Vista’s El Dorado Seafood & Grill in a case filed by Riley, says the attorney-fees provision is fundamentally unfair.

“Evenif you can prove a lack of willfulness and minimize the damages, youstill have to deal with the attorneys fees,” Feria says. “Thesestatutes really cry out for review by Congress. It’s very heavy-handedin favor of the industry, and even the innocent are caught in its viseand have to pay.”

Woods considers himself among the innocent.

In December 2007, Woods says, he set up his DirecTV package at one of the company’s kiosks at Costco.

“I’dbought a couple of flat screens, and I said, ‘Hey, I own bar and I wantDirecTV installed,’” Woods says. “They wrote it down on the invoice,‘This is a business.’ A guy came down a few days later to install thecable and clearly, the business was a tavern.”

Nevertheless,he says DirecTV and Ironwood Communications incorrectly recorded hisaccount as “residential,” which means he paid a homeowner’s ratewhenever he ordered a match. With a commercial account, the systemwould have directed Woods to contact Joe Hand when he attempted topurchase a match using his remote control.

“I didn’t knowingly pirate anything,” Woods says. “I was misled by DirectTV… and I would say it’s because of their negligence and that the worker didn’t have a clue what he was doing.”

Feriasays that he’s encountered a similar problem with some of his clientsand Sky TV, the Mexican equivalent of DirecTV, which sells satelliteprogramming to customers on both sides of the border.

“Theconsumers buying Sky TV believe they’re paying for the right service,and they’re very surprised when they get lawsuits from J & J,”Feria says. “Those could be defended on the theory that nothing hasbeen stolen or interfered with, and the dispute J & J has should bewith Sky TV and not these consumers.”

Butthat claim hasn’t yet been tested in court, Feria says, since most barowners can’t afford to fully pursue the case. Woods, however, hasdecided to drag DirectTV into the fray with a lawsuit, but it remainsto be seen whether he can saddle the corporation with the bill.

“Runninga business during these tough economic times is hard enough,” Woodssays. “Then you have an ambulance-chaser mixed in with the negligenceof a Fortune 500 company…. It’s frustrating. It really is. That’s whyI’m going to have my lawyer go full throttle.”

Write to davem@sdcitybeat.com and editor@sdcitybeat.