An appeals court in California has found in favour of Rod Stewart's attorney in a long running dispute over a proposed Latin American tour, though this involves an understanding of the tort of intentional interference in third party contracts, which is even more mind boggling than implied malice. I'm going to gloss over it and hope you don't notice.
The dispute related to plans to stage various Rod Stewart concerts in Latin America, deals for which were negotiated in 2001. It's a bit confusing because there were a number of different deals between Stewart's manager Annie Challis and his agent Steve Levine of ICM on the one side, and promoter Howard Pollack and sub-promoters who would stage individual events in different cities on the other. Stewart's attorney, Barry Tyerman, was also involved in some of the deals, some of which were contracted, some of which were not. Various deposits were also paid to Stewart along the way as gestures of good will by the promoters.
When it all fell through the promoters sued Challis, Levine and Tyerman, firstly to get back their deposits, and also for damages for negligent misrepresentation and, in Tyerman's case, for intentionally interfering with the subcontracts relating to Stewart's performances.
In 2004 the courts ruled in the promoters' favour, ordering the Stewart camp to return $780,000 in deposits and to pay $1.6 million in damages, mainly because of the alleged intentional interfering. The Stewart camp appealed, and that went to court this month, where the appeal judges found that while the deposits should be returned, there was, in fact, not a strong enough case against Tyerman regarding his involvement in the various contracts, for complicated legal reasons I won't bore you with.
The result of all this is that the Stewart camp will have to return the deposits and pay some of the promoter's legal fees, but won't have to pay damages. So there you go. That's that sorted.