Around that time, in December 2006, Burnett's lawyer sent Riggs a three-page contract to formalize the long-standing verbal agreement between Riggs and Burnett. According to the suit, Riggs was told that if he didn't sign the document, Burnett "would terminate their business relationship."
Riggs refused to sign, the suit said, because the terms were different from their "agreements and practices." In January 2007, Burnett's company stopped paying the salary of Riggs' assistant, and payments to Riggs ceased the next month.
Riggs continued to work with Burnett on projects even after Riggs was "removed" from their offices this year, the suit said.
"Over the last year and half, Conrad continued to work with Burnett under difficult circumstances," said Riggs' attorney Bart H. Williams. "We think that cutting Conrad out of the day-to-day operations and not paying him were both designed to put maximum pressure on him to give up his rights in the enterprise, and that's something that Conrad simply won't do."
Burnett and Riggs met in December 1997 when Burnett was struggling to sell a documentary-style TV series called "Eco-Challenge," which covered a wilderness adventure race. Burnett was having trouble getting television networks interested, and so Riggs gave him pointers, the suit said.
Over the years, Riggs negotiated agreements with television networks, corporate sponsors and merchandising partners and talent and book deals, according to the suit. Burnett even praised Riggs in print.
In the acknowledgments to his 2005 book "Jump In," Burnett wrote "a special thank-you to Conrad Riggs, who has played a huge role in all of this, and has always been in the driver's seat of the innovative deal-making for Mark Burnett Productions."
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meg.james@latimes.com
