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Flo Rida appeals against Facebook fine
RnB/Hip Hop | Thursday 20th September 2012 | Osh
With the amount of money that he has made in the last few years, you would think Flo Rida would know by now that sometimes he does need to work for it. This may be a lesson that he now knows too well as the rapper is currently in the process of appealing against a $400,000-plus fine caused by him not turning up for a festival in Australia.
The judgment, which was served to Flo – real name Tramar Dillard – last month means that he owes almost $418,000 to the promoters of the down under music festival, Fat As Butter, after failing to appear as the headline act back in 2011.
On top of this, a ‘freezing’ order was placed on him earlier this year, which means that any money that he earns in Australia will be kept from him until he pays off the outstanding debt. This means that he is basically unable to have a career in Australia in the short-term future.
His latest appeal against the fine is based entirely on the fact that the summons was served to him via Facebook, which has never before been done. Apparently, in the eyes of Flo Rida and his legal team, the wonders of social media may not be suitable for serving important legal documents. Who knew?
According to his appeal, Flo claims that the details of the court-case were “not validly served” and that Justice Judith Gibson of the NWN Supreme Court did not have jurisdiction to serve the summons online. The rapper is not however objecting to the reason for the fine, as it would be hard for him to argue that he was in fact at the festival when all fans could enjoy was an empty stage.
Originally, the festival only claimed $80,000 from Dillard (plus damages) so had he paid this off straight away, legal representatives would not have had time to argue that he caused damage to the festival’s reputation and future loss of tickets, which led to the ultimate figure of more than $400,000. It’s funny how things work out.
By David Pratt
