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“Yeah,” said Jack, thinking of how this “date night” had played out. “Every now and then, you run across a rule that actually makes sense.”
Chapter 3
On Monday morning, Imani’s black limo stopped outside the south entrance to the Miami-Dade County Courthouse on Flagler Street. Jack stepped onto the sidewalk—alone, to the disappointment of the adoring fans of his client and a flock of microphone-thrusting members of the media.
“Is Imani a no-show?” a reporter asked him.
“I waited five hours to see her,” a random fan griped.
Jack offered no response. He continued up the granite steps to the revolving entrance doors. If all were going according to plan, Imani would be unrecognizable in her floppy sunhat, cheap sunglasses, and plain-Jane attire, as Theo escorted her inside through the north entrance on the opposite side of the building, where hundreds of registered voters who’d been tagged for jury duty funneled through security and into the lobby like herded cattle.
“Go Imani, go pirate!” someone in the crowd shouted. Others hoisted hand-drawn posters, some with words to the same effect, others that simply proclaimed “I♥Imani.” The ring of onlookers was at least ten deep, and those in the back were too far away to notice that Imani wasn’t with her lawyer.
The wait for an elevator was too long, so Jack bailed and took the stairs to Judge Stevens’s courtroom on the fifth floor. Another mob of Imani worshipers filled the lobby outside the courtroom. Some were standing on the benches for a better view, and courtroom deputies made repeated requests for them to get down and keep quiet. Jack pushed his way through the noise and commotion and entered the courtroom through the rear double doors. There were only eight rows of publicseating, the first of which was “media only.” Spectators were shoulder to shoulder, not an open seat available. Jack hurried up the center aisle, pushed through the swinging gate, and joined his client at the rectangular table on the other side of the polished mahogany rail that separated observers from participants in the courtroom drama that was about to unfold.
“All rise!” the bailiff called.
All complied as the side door to Judge Stevens’s chambers opened and the silver-haired judge ascended to the bench. Imani’s ex-husband was the plaintiff, so he and his lawyer were at the table nearest to the jury box, which was empty, since there was no jury for this preliminary hearing. Jack had never been on the opposite side of Jennifer Ellis, but she was a skilled trial lawyer with a “take no prisoners” reputation.
The bailiff called the case—“Evan ‘Shaky’ Nichols versus Imani Nichols”—which, for Jack, seemed to shrink things down to size, reducing Imani the pop star to Imani the litigant. For a few, however, the courtroom was not the great equalizer where all players were treated the same, as someone in the audience said in a voice too loud, “I never knew her last name was Nichols.” Judge Stevens immediately gaveled it down.
“Please, folks,” he said, gavel in hand. “I understand that this case is of public interest, but I can’t have two hundred spectators acting like they’re sitting at home on their sofa watching Court TV. If you can’t keep your comments to yourself, the door is right behind you.”
Stevens wasn’t a surly old judge, but he did run a tight courtroom. After three decades of service on the bench, the word around the courthouse was that he’d reached the point in his career of saying whatever he felt like saying.
“Mr. Swyteck, how’s your daddy?”
As the son of the former governor, Jack was used to it. “Playing a lot of golf.”
“Good for him. In the interest of full disclosure, I wanted to point out that the judicial nominating committee put my name forward three times for appointment to the Florida Supreme Court, and three times Governor Swyteck picked someone else. So here I am, all these years later, the longest-serving trial court judge in the state of Florida.”
“I was not aware of that,” said Jack.
“No reason you should be. I just want you to rest assured that none of that ancient history will in any way affect my impartiality in this case. I’m as evenhanded as they come. ‘Even Stevens,’ they call me,” he said, directing his comments to the row of reporters in the gallery. “In that spirit, Ms. Ellis, how’syourdaddy?”
“My father died twenty-two years ago, Your Honor.”
“Well, all right. We all gotta go sometime. Let the record reflect that I asked both sides, at least. Now, the first order of business is a motion filed yesterday by Mr. Swyteck, which seeks to continue this hearing to a later date.”
Shaky’s lawyer was back on her feet. “We oppose any delay, Your Honor.”
“I’m sure you do. But seeing as how Mr. Swyteck was just retained this past weekend, let me check with my assistant to see how long that delay would be. Barbara, what’s the next two-day opening on my calendar?”
The assistant checked the computer screen in front of her. “That would be the sixteenth of October.”
Jack rose. “Judge, a two-week continuance would be plenty of time for me to come up to speed.”
“Actually, I meant October ofnextyear,” said the judicial assistant.
Such was the reality of the civil docket in Miami-Dade County.
Ellis spoke up immediately. “Judge, this is not a complicated case. My client has brought suit under a nondisparagement clause. Ms. Nichols has disparaged my client by claiming that he is a ‘thief’ who ‘stole’ her master recordings. That’s a lie. She has compounded the injury to my client by telling her fans to ‘go pirate’ and purchase her songs illegally, depriving my client of any revenue from the master recordings he rightfully owns.”
Jack spoke. “Judge, if by ‘not complicated’ my opposing counsel means ‘frivolous,’ I agree with her characterization. If we are given the time to properly prepare for this hearing, the evidence will show that when my client stated that Mr. Nichols ‘stole’ her master recordings, she simply meant he underpaid for them. That’s hardly disparagement.”
“Let’s keep this simple,” said the judge. “Ms. Ellis, what exactly does your client hope to accomplish at today’s hearing?”
“We want a preliminary injunction that orders Imani to do three things. First, we want a gag order forbidding her from making any further statements or social media posts encouraging her fans to ‘go pirate.’ Second, we want an order directing her to take down and delete all previous social media posts encouraging her fans to ‘go pirate.’ Third, we want a mandatory injunction requiring her to retract her previous statements and to issue a formal statement telling her fans to stop going pirate.”
