Jerry Seinfeld Forced to Pay Big Over Shabbat Observance
I was just speaking with a Shomer Shabbat friend the other day, about some issues she was having with some less than understanding clients of hers, over the fact that she is unavailable by phone over the weekends. Looks like the problem is going around:
Jerry Seinfeld must pay a Manhattan Realtor at least $98,000 after trying to beat her out of her fee because she wasn't available at his beck and call, a judge has ruled.Anyone have any stories about being penalized at work for being Shomer Shabbat? Consider this a good place to rant.
Seinfeld's broker, Tamara Cohen, a Sabbath-observing Jew, had her phone turned off on a Saturday in February 2005 when the comic and his wife wanted to see a luxurious West 82nd Street town house.
So the Seinfelds went without her and negotiated the $3.95 million sale directly with the owner.
Cohen had previously shown the house to Seinfeld's wife, Jessica, and his estate manager, but the comedian refused to pay Cohen's commission because "she was not available to show him the premises when he wanted to see it," according to court papers.
posted by orthomom at 8:56 AM
64 Comments:
I can't believe that Seinfeld's attorneys even let this go to trial.
I've never had a problem myself, but then again I work for a Jewish institution.
Shabbos aside, it's simply pathetic when someone who is paying so much money simply tries to cheat their way out of paying a service fee that they clearly owe.
"I was just speaking with a Shomer Shabbat friend the other day"
As if you have any non-shomer shabbat friends.
Echoing Charlie Hall, this is not a great case for Seinfeld. Nor is it good PR for him. He or his wife must have fealt pretty strongly about this to let this get to where it is.
Which makes what he did more despicable.
I'm all for Tamara getting her money--that was a truly obnoxious stunt Seinfeld pulled.
I have to say though--$98,000 is a ridiculous amount to ask as a service fee. It shows how conventional economics totally runs into absurdity in places like Manhattan. I'm a medical resident, and myself and many of my colleagues are used to working 90 hour weeks in order to get paid less than half that amount per year, and she gets this for a single sale!
Again: I'm not saying she couldn't get her money, 'cause I love capitalism as much as anyone else, and Seinfeld definitely should be punished, but G-d Almighty!
Anonymous said...
"I was just speaking with a Shomer Shabbat friend the other day"
As if you have any non-shomer shabbat friends.
Uh, right. It's completely unbelievable that I have any non-Shomer Shabbat friends, co-workers, or family members.
I have to say though--$98,000 is a ridiculous amount to ask as a service fee.
It's only ridiculous until you consider how much the apartment the Seinfeld's bought ran them. 98k is relatively small potatoes.
and realize that Tamara might sell only 1 apartment all year
Yo Dr. you should quit your residency and become a real estate agent. Nobody is stopping you. The medical field ain't what it used to be. However, ir you choose to be a plastic surgeon or an orthopod, you coud still make some good money. BTW 6% on 3.95 million should be close to 240k.
2.5% is normal, actually - while usually it's about 5%, realtors will cut it in half on high-end places. (My MIL is a realtor.)
I can't believe that Seinfeld's attorneys even let this go to trial.
Maybe they thought that his being Jewish would help the case? I think this is a big case in terms of differentiating that even among religions, different groups have very different beliefs, and that even a Jew can be "anti-Jewish" [for lack of a better term] in terms of specific differences between the groups.
Typical Jews, I don't see the fuss...it's one Yid trying to screw another Yid out of some $$$. It happens daily in the Frum world.
$98,000 is fair for a $4M deal.
Realtors run around like madmen for their clients - who don't pay a penny unless they buy.
They show properties buyers wouldn't know of otherwise and invest a lot of time in finding them.
And a realtor can waste an entire year on clients who will blow you off at the last minute, or are simply using you for their Sunday family outings, or on sellers who decide to raise the price at the last minute or simply back out.
Realtors work very hard, and are treated like garbage.
I was almost rejected for a job in Israel because I said I wouldn't work on Shabbat.
I was then asked if I would come into work on Shabbat if it were "pikuach nefesh" -- and I said, "of course, for pikuach nefesh I would come in..." but for the life of me, I had no clue how there could be a "pikuach nefesh" issue for work as a software/robotics developer.
Um, mr. medical resident, I have news for you.
Medical residency is paid slavery. your teachers went through it, their teachers went through it, and their teachers went through it. It's the right of passage that makes you a valid doctor.
Oh, and btw, 90 hours a week for 40000 is a lot of money for a medical resident, when my mother went through residency in the ninties it was about 120 hours a week for something like 24 thou.
Just FYI
Never had an employer Shabbos issue in 30 years of practice at a big Wall Street firm and then four very large financial institutions.
On the other hand, I've had lots of agmas nefesh because deals were closing or major events occurred on Friday.
On a positive note, my husband once landed a major deal *because* he was Shomer Shabbos.
Turned out that one of the executives making the decision had served as a "Shabbos goy" as a teenager, and was a veritable expert on hilchos Shabbos.
Another staffer later revealed to my husband in the course of the project that this executive had immediately rejected several non-observant Jewish firms, announcing to his colleagues that "if they don't even honor their contract with G-d, what makes us think they'll treat us any differently."
Supreme Court Judge Rolando Acosta ruled Cohen, who as co-broker is entitled to half of the sales commission, clearly deserved to be paid.
This means the other "co-broker" gets (or maybe already got) the other half of the commission.
As for her fee being supposedly
"outrageous," it is no more outrageous than Mr. Seinfeld making a complete fool of himself on TV and making millions from it.
Anonymous said...
Typical Jews, I don't see the fuss...it's one Yid trying to screw another Yid out of some $$$. It happens daily in the Frum world.
Didn't know that Julius Streicher had come back from the dead.
"Oh, and btw, 90 hours a week for 40000 is a lot of money for a medical resident, when my mother went through residency in the ninties it was about 120 hours a week for something like 24 thou.
Just FYI"
Yeah, and some children were kidnapped and sold as slaves and work for nothing, what's your point?
What a dummy he was for trying to pull that stunt. he certainly could afford the fee so why be so pathetic. this make him look so bad...what's the point? He obviously had not patients and thought he could get away with it bec. He's Jerry?
The Seinfelds clearly wanted to punish the broker for not being willing to jump at their command -- at least for 26 hours a week. Unfortunately, it's an occupational hazard for people who are used to being kowtowed to and receiving special treatment.
Disgusting as that is, how many of *us* have become demanding and imperious with the baker, butcher, or dry cleaner when we didn't get precisely what we wanted or felt we were entitled to get?
These incidents are a good reminder to everyone that acting like a self-important jerk just makes you look like ... a self-important jerk.
I am a christian who has always honored my few observant subordinates observation of the Sabbath even though we are in an intense professional service industry. I have never regretted it.
When I was in Brooklyn College in the early 80's, on Hoshana Rabba, my english professor assigned a paper that was due in two days, on Simchas Torah. He said that he consulted a "rabbi" who told him that it is okay for an observant Jew to walk to school on yom tov and deliver it to the professor. Seemingly, I was the only frum Jew in the class because no one protested. I ended up working that whole afternoon of erev yom tov on that paper and I left it in the professor's mailbox.
beck and call
The pedantic police correct this to beckon call
Pretty Woman notwithstanding
Jameel-
Regarding the non-pikuach nefesh pikuach nefesh question at your Israeli interview:
I'm thinking that they may have been testing to see if you were really refusing to work on halachic grounds, or whether you were a chiloni or masorti, not-fully-observant, Israeli who simply wanted to get out of working on Saturdays.
This story really gets in my craw. I'm sure that there are very complex legal questions here and I'm no expert on contract law, so I can't comment in that regard. But it just seems that the Seinfelds are trying to get around the rules on a technocallity that they should be especially senstive to. Their sense of entitlement is astounding, although not suprising giving our celebrity worshipping culture. Good for Tamara for standing up to them. The Shabbos work thing can be tricky. My boss grudgingly lets me leave early enough on Fridays -- and I've overheard him on a number of occassions complaining about it (and complaining about how if he doesn't, it's discrimination). Two weeks ago, I looked at our master calendar and discovered that he is leaving early, too -- to pick his kid up from hockey. Oy.
well, with all do respect if our esteemed rabbis and frum people can kick out RABBI ASHKENAZI and leave him on the street with our parnassa, then what do we want from JERRY SEINFELD
why do we need ANTISEMITISEM?
we got em here amongst us.
The media frequently gets things wrong in legal cases, but if the facts are as reported, then Seinfeld got screwed by his lawyers, who took an unwinnable case, just because they are billing hourly. I used to represent brokers in litigation, and it is very hard to legally close without paying the broker, once they introduced the parties to the property.
masorti, not-fully-observant, Israeli who simply wanted to get out of working on Saturdays.
Plenty of masortis observe Shabbat halachically. Please don't paint with such a broad brush.
According to the court papers, the Seinfelds claim Cohen never told thenm she didnt return their call becasue she was a Sabbath observer. If this fact was not disclosed ot is hard to make the case of discrimination. All they saw ws a broker who wasn't on the ball for the buyer (or seller for that matter).
I am very surprised that Seinfeld allowed himself such bad publicity.
I am also surprised that he only spend $4mil on his apartment, I would have thought he would spent more than that! :-) Accrodign to Forbes, he is still pulling in $100mil a year from syndication rights to his show and from comedy gigs.
Here's a link to the law.com article about this:
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1168596140672
There is one thing I don't get here. I'm no lawyer or real estate broker, but I have bought and sold a few properties over the years. What the heck does Jerry Seinfeld have to do with this? The SELLER pays the commission, right? He's the buyer. The commission could be 50% for all the buyer cares, it's not his money. The broker with the listing wasn't working for him, and either was she. When you go in to a real estate office the first thing they do is give you a paper to sign that basically says "I'm not working for you."
goyguy,
Seinfeld indemnified the seller.
Jerry Seinfeld is no fan of Orthodox Jews. Orthodox Jews were portrayed on his show as either brash loudmouths (the mohel)or dumb blabbermouths (Elaine's rabbi).
I used to work at a law firm in Nassau County where the senior partner was a self-hating Jew. He used to belittle Shabbos and Yom Tov, made nasty comments whenever I left early on Fridays in the winter and pointedly ignored Chanukah when the gentile employees put up Christmas stuff. Eventually we got into a big fight about my raise and he subsequently fired me. I should have sued his ass for religious discrimination and wrongful termination. I probably would have lost but at least I would made this bastard's life a little more difficult.
Catholic Guy said...
I am a christian who has always honored my few observant subordinates observation of the Sabbath even though we are in an intense professional service industry. I have never regretted it.
==============
Catholic Guy, You are extremely cool, and I wish you great success. Tell us more. They just work longer on other days, to make up the missed hours, right? Maybe they even work BETTER, just to honor your consideration of them. Do you have any stories you want to tell?
Bless you.
Keith
Are you saying he was a "self hating jew" because he wasn't a religious nut?
No, I'm saying exactly what I said before - that he portrayed Orthodox Jews on his show as either brash loudmouths or dumb blabbermouths. His level of religiosity, or lack of same, is completely irrelevant. There's a difference between not being observant but having a modicum of respect for others who are (whether Jewish, Christian or other, by the way) and actively mocking those who are religious. I think Seinfeld went out of his way to do the latter.
Oh, if you were referring to the senior partner I used to work for (it wasn't clear who you were referring to), the same applies - he went out of his way to mock me and make me uncomfortable.
THE $98, 000. FEE WAS THE 3% COMMISSION A RELATOR NORMALLY GETS ON THE SALE OF A HOUSE.
HOWEVER, I DO AGREE WITH SEINFELD WHICH IS "HEH YOU DIDN'T EVEN SHOW UP AND NOW YOU WANT $98,000. FOR THE SALE OF THE HOUSE? BUT THE LAW AND THE RIGHT TO PRACTICE ONE'S RELIGIONS PREVAILS.
I fully agree with whatever thing you have presented.
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