Fans of The Sopranos, HBO’s exceptional television drama about organised crime in New Jersey, were treated to a bonus episode in the United States District Court last month. David Chase, creator of the series, was being sued by Robert Baer, a former judge who claimed compensation for the help that he claimed to have given Chase. The jury concluded that Baer should fuhgeddaboudit.

Before meeting Baer in 1995, Chase had already worked on a script about “a Mob boss in therapy” who has two difficult children, money problems and a mid-life crisis. Baer introduced Chase to New Jersey contacts and commented on a draft Sopranos screenplay. Baer claimed that Chase told him that if the show were to be a success, Chase “would take care of” Baer and that Chase had repeatedly promised: “You help me; I pay you”, language that could well have been used by characters in the series. After the programme’s success was assured, and Chase declined to pay, Baer did not run him over in his car, dispose of him in a meat-processing plant or arrange for a hitman from Italy to “take care of” him. Baer brought legal proceedings in 2002.

Chase sought summary judgment on the basis that the facts alleged by Baer gave no cause of action even if true. In 2004 Joel A. Pisano, a District Court judge, agreed and dismissed the claim as unarguable. The Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit upheld Judge Pisano’s conclusion that the alleged contract was too vague to be enforced, and that Baer had no valid claim for misappropriation of an idea because all the information he supplied was in the public domain. But the Court of Appeals ruled that Baer did have an arguable claim in quasi-contract - that is for the value of services rendered and accepted.

In 2005 Judge Pisano dismissed the quasi-contract claim on limitation grounds: Baer had started proceedings in 2002, more than six years after the last service he had rendered. In 2006 the Court of Appeals again took a different view, this time by a majority of 2-1. It ruled that Baer’s comments in 1997 on a draft Sopranos screenplay were the final service that he had performed and it did not matter for limitation purposes whether (as Judge Pisano and the dissenting judge found) the service was of no value to Chase.

So the case came to trial. For five days Judge Pisano and the jury were treated to a cast of characters who could well have come from the television series where Tony Soprano lives in constant fear that those he has known will give evidence against him in court. Baer called as a witness Tony Spirito, who told the jury that he had been released from jail just before he had lunch with Case and Baer in 1995. “I do know a lot of mobsters,” he confirmed. He had told Chase true and sometimes personal stories about loan sharking, a power struggle between two uncles, and the exploits of Big Pussy and Little Pussy. Under cross-examination he acknowledged his gambling problems and confirmed that, after the show became a hit, he tried to contact Chase “to cash in”. Chase did not return his calls. Detective Tommy Koczur gave evidence that he had shown Chase waste management businesses run by organised crime and had pointed out locations where the detective met informants. The jury were not taken on a visit to the prototype of the Bada Bing! bar.

In giving his evidence, Chase sounded like his creation: a powerful man trying to deal with aggravation that had depressed him. Unlike Tony Soprano, he sang like a canary. The Sopranos “was my life. It was me. That was my mother, my uncles.” It made him “sick” that someone else was taking the credit. “You’re a man. You’re a grown-up. You’re not supposed to cry. But I felt like crying.” He no doubt remembered that the power of the New York boss Johnny “Sack” Sacramoni evaporated after he cried in frustration when the FBI spoilt the end of his daughter’s wedding by taking him back to prison. Chase told the jury that when he needed a “true Mafia expert”, he had relied not on Baer but on Dan Castleman, Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan.

Judge Pisano wisely instructed the lawyers that “this is not a screenplay. We have evidence rules.” There was no tampering with the jury, as in the organised crime trial of Tony Soprano’s uncle Corrado. The legal drama of promises, favours, influence and power came to an end with the jury rejecting Baer’s claim. Chase had removed a rival. Outside court, Chase said it was “like having a fly buzzing in your bathroom for seven years and now it’s been swatted”. You feel sorry for Chase’s wife and psychiatrist, his own Carmela and Dr Jennifer Melfi. Baer’s ambitions as a writer, like those of Tony Soprano’s nephew Christopher, were doomed to frustration. As characters in The Sopranos frequently discovered, you are disposable when of no further use. So whatyougonnado?

The author is a practising barrister at Blackstone Chambers and a Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford

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