Nelly has asked a US judge to sanction lawyers working for a former bandmate who sued him last year in a copyright dispute. The legal claims made by Ali Jones who, like Nelly, was previously a member of hip hop group St Lunatics, are “objectively frivolous”, a new legal filing states, so much so Jones’ lawyers should never have filed a lawsuit.
Jones claims that he co-wrote songs on Nelly’s 2000 debut album ‘Country Grammar’ but never got his credits or royalties, despite promises around the record’s release that he would. However, “even the barest factual investigation and legal research” would have revealed that Jones has no legitimate claim, Nelly’s legal team now insists, according to Billboard. As a result, Jones and his lawyers should be ordered to pay the full amount Nelly “has been forced to incur in defending this action”.
Responding, Jones’ lawyers say they will “vehemently defend” against these claims while continuing to fight for their clients’ “undeniable right to be properly compensated” for his alleged work on ‘Country Grammar’. They then add, “It is both unethical and unlawful for artists and their corporate partners to exploit the creative work of writers, deceiving them out of their rightful credits and fair compensation”.
When Jones filed his lawsuit last September, he was seemingly backed by three other former members of St Lunatics - Torhi Harper, Robert Kyjuan and Lavell Webb - who also claimed to have co-written songs on ‘Country Grammar’, and to have been denied credits and royalties by Nelly, despite initial promises that they would get a cut of the money generated by those works.
However, they were all subsequently removed from the lawsuit, with Nelly’s lawyers stating that Harper, Kyjuan and Webb had never agreed to be parties in the litigation, and had no desire to sue their former bandmate.
An amended lawsuit with just Jones listed as plaintiff was then submitted to the court. But it never should have been, according to Nelly’s legal team, not least because it is first and foremost a copyright infringement claim, and there is a three year statute of limitations under US copyright law.
That means that anyone suing for copyright infringement must sue no later than three years “after the claim accrued”. Under the ‘so called’ discovery rule, it is agreed that a claim ‘accrues’ when a copyright owner becomes aware of the infringement, not when the infringement actually happened.
However, Nelly’s team says that he formally rejected Jones’ claim to co-ownership of and royalties on the ‘Country Grammar’ songs many years before the lawsuit was filed, and legal action was clearly barred three years after that “repudiation” had taken place.
The failure of Jones’ lawyers to recognise this fact before filing his lawsuit - and their refusal to withdraw the litigation once the statute of limitation issue was raised - means that attorneys should be sanctioned, Nelly’s team insists.
Partly to compensate Nelly “for the substantial legal fees and expenses he has been forced to incur in defending this action”, but also to deter Jones and “others who would flout the Copyright Act’s rules and clear undisputed court precedent”.