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Paris Hilton flew in from Dubai and wore a conservative black-and-white outfit as trial opened in Miami federal court on a receiver's demand that her company pay more than $8 million for a less-than-stellar promotional campaign to introduce one of her box-office bombs.
Bryan Thomas West, a Tew Cardenas partner representing the court-appointed receiver, said in his opening statement that Hilton would come up with any excuse to not fulfill her contract.
"Ms. Hilton and her handlers think the rules don't apply to them," West said. "They wanted nothing to do with this film."
Hilton and her team did not follow through on nine publicity requests for "Pledge This!" including appearances with late-night hosts Jay Leno and Jimmy Kimmel and in Austria and Japan. Hilton said in a deposition that she preferred Dave Letterman to Leno because she doesn't like his questions.
Hilton's Los Angeles attorney Michael E. Weinsten rejected West's logic on reserving a celebrity's time.
"To say to Paris Hilton 'you are our insurance policy' because she didn't do these interviews, it's absolutely ridiculous," Weinsten said. "The reasons that she could not fulfill publicity requests for the movie is they would ask her to do a talk show in Los Angeles when she was in Tokyo and Sydney."
The jetsetting star can't do everything for everyone, he said.
"This is a very difficult life," said Weinsten, a partner with Liner Grode Stein Yankelevitz Sunshine Regenstreif & Taylor. "She lives a schedule of chaos. That's why she has handlers. She just flew in from Dubai and got in at 11:30 last night after filming 23 of 24 days in the Middle Eastern nation."
U.S. District Judge Federico Moreno, who is hearing the civil case without a jury, asked why she couldn't do a promotion for the film now while she's in Miami, and Weinsten said she had other commitments.
The judge interrupted West's opening remarks to ask him to explain the difference between a reasonable and unreasonable publicity request. When West struggled for a quick answer, the judge asked if it would be reasonable to ask Hilton to stroll down the Champs-Elysées with a sign that read "Pledge This!"
Hilton smiled and appeared to chuckle at Moreno's remark.
"Where do we draw the line?" he asked.
West said Hilton refused to do interviews with two British magazines that didn't live up to her standards.
"Whatever those standards would be," the judge quipped.
He also offered the observation that the contract was poorly drafted.
The celebrity heiress is expected to take the stand Friday in defense of her Paris Hilton Entertainment contract with the National Lampoon movie producer, Worldwide Entertainment Group. The company was seized by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2006 as yet another South Florida Ponzi scheme.
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