My jurisdiction is: not certain . . .
I would like to file a damage suit for breach of contract against Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd. (UK), the History Channel (UK and USA), Screen Yorkshire (UK), RDF International (UK), and Real Life Media (UK).
Here's a brief outline of my case as I see it:
I am a 68-year-old writer/sea captain long term resident of Florida. I am now retired and living in the Philippines. I have 40 years of experience running commercial boats and a keen interest is solving sea mysteries.
The greatest sea mystery of all time centers around the disappearance of the crew of the ghost ship Mary Celeste found abandoned off the coast of Spain in 1872.
Twenty years ago, I started researching this mystery, finally solving it after thousands of hours of hard work. My solution first appeared in print in the January 2002 editions of the Marine Observer, a quarterly journal produced by the MET office in London England.
The article stunted many sea captains and brought in a flood of inquiries so I decided to promote myself as a master detective specializing in the solution to strange and mysterious marine phenomenon.
In late 2002, I posted my solution on the Internet under a copyright notice. The article revealed how an earthquake at sea had occurred under the ship and frightened the nine-member crew so much that they abandoned the Mary Celeste and leaped into a small lifeboat more suited for only four people. The mother ship survived the earthquake but an aftershock sunk the small boat and the crew died. The Mary Celeste sail on and into the history books as the greatest sea mystery of all.
The solution sounds simple but I spent over 20 years developing the evidence, locating scientific documents, finding witnesses to seaquakes, and digging up hundreds of other facts to support my theory.
Channel Five TV in England and the History Channel in the USA were impressed with my solution and commissioned Real Life Media in Leeds England to film a one-hour TV special on my work.
We made a verbal agreement that I would act as their film/scientific adviser and furnish them with all my research to support my work in exchange for allowing me to plug a new novel I had written. They agreed and promised to fly my new bride and me all over the world while I conducted onscreen interviews with various experts to prove my seaquake concept for the TV audience.
This was not the first time a filmmaker had contacted me to make a film of my Mary Celeste work. I had passed up several previous offers because the timing was not advantageous to me, nor was the cash offer of any real value.
But the offer from the five companies mentioned above was different. Here was my chance to become famous as a master detective of sea mysteries.
Thousands of very famous people have tried to solve the mystery of the Mary Celeste and failed. If I could establish a reputation as the Sea Captain who solved the greatest sea mystery of all, then I would establish my credibility as a detective and my books would sell much faster.
My current book offers the only real solution to the Bermuda Triangle Mystery so have a bit of a solid reputation as a sluth means millions of books sold.
I viewed the offer for a 3-month all-expenses-paid trip around the world that they promised as a wedding present for my new wife worth at least 35,000 pounds. I viewed the free publicity for my book as worth 350,000 pounds so naturally I gave them all my research and my expert advice along with the names and location of all my scientific experts to collaborate my work so that they could work out the details of making the film.
These are two media giants (Channel 5 and the History Channel) that I was dealing with so why would I not trust their word?
They next sent their producer to the Philippines to do a screen test and to get more data and other technical info from me.
The first thing the producer did was smile a lot and slowly inform me that Channel 5, the History Channel, and the other big companies did not have the budget to fly my wife around with me to do the filming. She also said that certain laws in the UK prevented them from allowing me to plug my book. This came as terrible news to me so I immediately canceled the interview and told the producer (Diane Muir) to go back to the UK.
The head of Real Life Media contacted me by phone and said not to worry that he would negotiate a compensation package to my likely. I replied that I would do the film for 25,000 pounds minimum. He asked for time to contact Channel 5 and the History Channel to see if he could get a bigger budget.
He asked me to work with his producer and not worry because we would come to a compensation package before the filming would take place. I took him at his word because he represented two of the largest TV production companies in the World.
For the next five days, I worked on the finer details of my solution with his producer. I also did the screen test with her.
After the screen test was finished and they had drained me of every bit of the technical information they needed, the head office countered with an offered of 5,000 pounds take it or leave it.
I was stunted and finally agreed to 10,000 pounds. But before we reached an agreement, they suddenly pretended to be mad over the supposedly tough negoiations going on and broke off contact, and would no longer discuss my fee, not even the 5,000 pounds. I was to get NOTHING and they told me that I could do NOTHING about it.
Bottom line is that these five greedy multi-million dollar companies stole 20 years of my hard work and did the film without me. They used a handsome well-spoken author and a young girl to stand in for me. Apparently, they decided that my screen test was not good enough because I was fat and tired looking.
In hindsight, it looks like they meant to insult me with the 5,000-pound offer just so they could have an excuse to break our verbal contract.
In other words, they did all their negotiations from the start in bad faith. Had I been young and handsome on camera they would have likely met my 10,000-pound counter offer. But since I was a bit ugly, they decided the film would be better without the sea captain who had finally solve a 125-year-old mystery that no one before me could solve.
They robbed me of the personal credit for solving the greatest sea mystery of all times. They intended all along to swindle me out of my 20 years of research and beat me out of a consulting fee if I did not present too well on camera.
The film has been highly successful in the Uk and in the USA and they have made millions of dollars around the world. I think I have a good breach of contract suit against them and would like to file a case for several million dollars in damages to compensate me for destroying what I had worked so hard to accomplish.
Can anyone help or advise me in any way
Thank You So Kindly,
DW
dwms02@yahoo.com
I would like to file a damage suit for breach of contract against Channel 5 Broadcasting Ltd. (UK), the History Channel (UK and USA), Screen Yorkshire (UK), RDF International (UK), and Real Life Media (UK).
Here's a brief outline of my case as I see it:
I am a 68-year-old writer/sea captain long term resident of Florida. I am now retired and living in the Philippines. I have 40 years of experience running commercial boats and a keen interest is solving sea mysteries.
The greatest sea mystery of all time centers around the disappearance of the crew of the ghost ship Mary Celeste found abandoned off the coast of Spain in 1872.
Twenty years ago, I started researching this mystery, finally solving it after thousands of hours of hard work. My solution first appeared in print in the January 2002 editions of the Marine Observer, a quarterly journal produced by the MET office in London England.
The article stunted many sea captains and brought in a flood of inquiries so I decided to promote myself as a master detective specializing in the solution to strange and mysterious marine phenomenon.
In late 2002, I posted my solution on the Internet under a copyright notice. The article revealed how an earthquake at sea had occurred under the ship and frightened the nine-member crew so much that they abandoned the Mary Celeste and leaped into a small lifeboat more suited for only four people. The mother ship survived the earthquake but an aftershock sunk the small boat and the crew died. The Mary Celeste sail on and into the history books as the greatest sea mystery of all.
The solution sounds simple but I spent over 20 years developing the evidence, locating scientific documents, finding witnesses to seaquakes, and digging up hundreds of other facts to support my theory.
Channel Five TV in England and the History Channel in the USA were impressed with my solution and commissioned Real Life Media in Leeds England to film a one-hour TV special on my work.
We made a verbal agreement that I would act as their film/scientific adviser and furnish them with all my research to support my work in exchange for allowing me to plug a new novel I had written. They agreed and promised to fly my new bride and me all over the world while I conducted onscreen interviews with various experts to prove my seaquake concept for the TV audience.
This was not the first time a filmmaker had contacted me to make a film of my Mary Celeste work. I had passed up several previous offers because the timing was not advantageous to me, nor was the cash offer of any real value.
But the offer from the five companies mentioned above was different. Here was my chance to become famous as a master detective of sea mysteries.
Thousands of very famous people have tried to solve the mystery of the Mary Celeste and failed. If I could establish a reputation as the Sea Captain who solved the greatest sea mystery of all, then I would establish my credibility as a detective and my books would sell much faster.
My current book offers the only real solution to the Bermuda Triangle Mystery so have a bit of a solid reputation as a sluth means millions of books sold.
I viewed the offer for a 3-month all-expenses-paid trip around the world that they promised as a wedding present for my new wife worth at least 35,000 pounds. I viewed the free publicity for my book as worth 350,000 pounds so naturally I gave them all my research and my expert advice along with the names and location of all my scientific experts to collaborate my work so that they could work out the details of making the film.
These are two media giants (Channel 5 and the History Channel) that I was dealing with so why would I not trust their word?
They next sent their producer to the Philippines to do a screen test and to get more data and other technical info from me.
The first thing the producer did was smile a lot and slowly inform me that Channel 5, the History Channel, and the other big companies did not have the budget to fly my wife around with me to do the filming. She also said that certain laws in the UK prevented them from allowing me to plug my book. This came as terrible news to me so I immediately canceled the interview and told the producer (Diane Muir) to go back to the UK.
The head of Real Life Media contacted me by phone and said not to worry that he would negotiate a compensation package to my likely. I replied that I would do the film for 25,000 pounds minimum. He asked for time to contact Channel 5 and the History Channel to see if he could get a bigger budget.
He asked me to work with his producer and not worry because we would come to a compensation package before the filming would take place. I took him at his word because he represented two of the largest TV production companies in the World.
For the next five days, I worked on the finer details of my solution with his producer. I also did the screen test with her.
After the screen test was finished and they had drained me of every bit of the technical information they needed, the head office countered with an offered of 5,000 pounds take it or leave it.
I was stunted and finally agreed to 10,000 pounds. But before we reached an agreement, they suddenly pretended to be mad over the supposedly tough negoiations going on and broke off contact, and would no longer discuss my fee, not even the 5,000 pounds. I was to get NOTHING and they told me that I could do NOTHING about it.
Bottom line is that these five greedy multi-million dollar companies stole 20 years of my hard work and did the film without me. They used a handsome well-spoken author and a young girl to stand in for me. Apparently, they decided that my screen test was not good enough because I was fat and tired looking.
In hindsight, it looks like they meant to insult me with the 5,000-pound offer just so they could have an excuse to break our verbal contract.
In other words, they did all their negotiations from the start in bad faith. Had I been young and handsome on camera they would have likely met my 10,000-pound counter offer. But since I was a bit ugly, they decided the film would be better without the sea captain who had finally solve a 125-year-old mystery that no one before me could solve.
They robbed me of the personal credit for solving the greatest sea mystery of all times. They intended all along to swindle me out of my 20 years of research and beat me out of a consulting fee if I did not present too well on camera.
The film has been highly successful in the Uk and in the USA and they have made millions of dollars around the world. I think I have a good breach of contract suit against them and would like to file a case for several million dollars in damages to compensate me for destroying what I had worked so hard to accomplish.
Can anyone help or advise me in any way
Thank You So Kindly,
DW
dwms02@yahoo.com