Parks v. LaFace Records

Last updated

Parks v. LaFace Records
US-CourtOfAppeals-6thCircuit-Seal.png
Court United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Full case name Rosa Parks v. LaFace Records, et al.
ArguedMay 4, 2001
DecidedMay 12, 2003
Citations329 F.3d 437; 66 U.S.P.Q.2d 1735
Case history
Prior historySummary judgment granted, 76 F. Supp. 2d 775 (E.D. Mich. 1999).
Subsequent historyPetition for rehearing en banc denied, July 2, 2003; cert. denied, 540 U.S. 1074(2003).
Court membership
Judges sitting Alan Eugene Norris, R. Guy Cole Jr., John D. Holschuh
Case opinions
MajorityHolschuh, joined by unanimous

Parks v. LaFace Records, 329 F.3d 437 (6th Cir. 2003), was a lawsuit filed by attorney Gregory J Reed in March 1999 on Rosa Parks' behalf against American hip-hop duo Outkast and LaFace Records, claiming that the group had illegally used Parks' name without her permission for the song "Rosa Parks", the most successful radio single of Outkast's 1998 album Aquemini . The song's chorus, which Parks' legal defense felt was disrespectful to her, is as follows: "Ah ha, hush that fuss / Everybody move to the back of the bus / Do you want to bump and slump with us / We the type of people make the club get crunk." [1]

The case was dismissed in November 1999 by U.S. District Court Judge Barbara Kloka Hackett. [2] In August 2000, Parks' attorney Reed hired attorney Johnnie Cochran to help her appeal the district court's decision. Cochran argued that the song did not have First Amendment protection because, although its title carried Parks' name, its lyrics were not about her. However, Judge Hackett upheld Outkast's right to use Parks' name in November 1999, and Parks took the case to the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, where some charges were remanded for further trial. [3]

Parks' attorneys Reed, refiled in August 2004, and named BMG, Arista Records and LaFace Records as the defendants, asking for $5 million in damages. (Also named as defendants were several parties not directly connected to the songs, including Barnes & Noble and Borders for selling the songs, and Gregory Dark and Braddon Mendelson, the director and producer, respectively, of the 1998 music video. The judge dismissed the music video producers from the case by the reason of "fraudulent joinder", as these defendants had no connection to the case and there was no justifiable reason for the plaintiff's attorneys to add them to the lawsuit.)

In October 2004, U.S. District Judge George Caram Steeh appointed Dennis Archer, a former mayor of Detroit and Michigan Supreme Court justice, as guardian of legal matters for Parks after her family expressed concerns that her caretakers and her lawyer were pursuing the case based on their own financial interests. [4] "My auntie would never, ever go to this length to hurt some young artists trying to make it in the world," Parks' niece Rhea McCauley said in an Associated Press interview. "As a family, our fear is that during her last days Auntie Rosa will be surrounded by strangers trying to make money off of her name." [5]

The lawsuit was settled April 15, 2005. In the settlement agreement, Outkast and their producer and recorded labels paid Parks an undisclosed cash settlement and agreed to work with the Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute for Self Development in creating educational programs about the life of Rosa Parks. The record labels and Outkast admitted to no wrongdoing. It is not known whether Parks' legal fees were paid for from her settlement money or by the record companies. [6]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child Online Protection Act</span> Former U.S. law to protect minors from certain material on the Internet

The Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was a law in the United States of America, passed in 1998 with the declared purpose of restricting access by minors to any material defined as harmful to such minors on the Internet. The law, however, never took effect, as three separate rounds of litigation led to a permanent injunction against the law in 2009.

In United States federal law, the Daubert standard is a rule of evidence regarding the admissibility of expert witness testimony. A party may raise a Daubert motion, a special motion in limine raised before or during trial, to exclude the presentation of unqualified evidence to the jury. The Daubert trilogy are the three United States Supreme Court cases that articulated the Daubert standard:

Browder v. Gayle, 142 F. Supp. 707 (1956), was a landmark federal court case that ruled that segregation on public transportation was unconstitutional. The case was heard before a three-judge panel of the United States District Court for the Middle District of Alabama on the segregation of Montgomery and Alabama state buses. The panel consisted of Middle District of Alabama Judge Frank Minis Johnson, Northern District of Alabama Judge Seybourn Harris Lynne, and Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Richard Rives. The main plaintiffs in the case were Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith. Their attorney, Fred Gray, also approached Jeanetta Reese to join the suit, but intimidation by segregationists caused her to withdraw.

<i>Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service</i> Lawsuit

Steve Jackson Games, Inc. v. United States Secret Service, 816 F. Supp. 432, was a lawsuit arising from a 1990 raid by the United States Secret Service on the headquarters of Steve Jackson Games (SJG) in Austin, Texas. The raid, along with the Secret Service's unrelated Operation Sundevil, was influential in the founding of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

<i>Wilson v. Libby</i>

Wilson v. Libby, 498 F. Supp. 2d 74, affirmed, 535 F.3d 697, was a civil lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on 13 July, 2006, by Valerie Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV, against Richard Armitage (individually) for allegedly revealing her identity and thus irresponsibly infringing upon her Constitutional rights and against Vice President of the United States Dick Cheney, Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, and the unnamed others (together) because the latter, in addition, allegedly "illegally conspired to reveal her identity." The lawsuit was ultimately dismissed.

Dennis G. Jacobs is a senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Thomas L. Ambro</span> American judge (born 1949)

Thomas Lee Ambro is a Senior United States circuit judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Avern Cohn</span> American judge (1924–2022)

Avern Levin Cohn was a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Loretta Preska</span> American judge (born 1949)

Loretta A. Preska is an American lawyer who serves as a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Born in Albany, Preska received law degrees from Fordham University School of Law and New York University School of Law. She practiced law in New York City from 1973 to 1992 at the law firms of Cahill Gordon & Reindel and Hertzog, Calamari & Gleason. President George H. W. Bush appointed her to the district bench in 1992. She served as chief judge of the court for a seven-year term from 2009 to 2016, and took senior status in 2017. President George W. Bush nominated Preska to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in 2008, but the Senate did not act on the nomination.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rosa Parks (song)</span> 1999 single by Outkast

"Rosa Parks" is a song by the hip hop duo Outkast. It was released as the second single from their album Aquemini (1998), and was that album's most successful single. The song's title comes from the civil rights movement activist Rosa Parks.

<i>Arar v. Ashcroft</i> American legal case

Arar v. Ashcroft, 585 F.3d 559, was a lawsuit brought by Maher Arar against the United States and various U.S. officials pursuant to the Torture Victim Protection Act (TVPA), and the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York dismissed Arar's complaint due to lack of personal jurisdiction and national security and foreign policy considerations. This ruling was ultimately upheld by a divided en banc panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.

<i>United States v. Weitzenhoff</i>

United States v. Weitzenhoff, 35 F.3d 1275 is a legal opinion from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals that addresses the confusing mens rea requirement of a federal environmental law that imposed criminal sanctions on certain polluters. The main significance of the court's opinion was that it interpreted the word "knowingly" in the statute to mean a general awareness of the wrongfulness of one's actions or the likelihood of illegality, rather than an actual knowledge of the statute being violated. Circuit Court Judge Betty Binns Fletcher authored the majority's legal opinion in this case.

David Ormon Carter is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Central District of California.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">American Foundation for Equal Rights</span> American nonprofit organization

The American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER) was a nonprofit organization active in the United States from 2009 through 2015. The organization was established to support the plaintiffs in Hollingsworth v. Perry, a federal lawsuit challenging California's Proposition 8 under the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. AFER retained former United States Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson and David Boies to lead the legal team representing the plaintiffs challenging Proposition 8.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul A. Engelmayer</span> American judge (born 1961)

Paul Adam Engelmayer is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York.

Waesche, Sheinbaum & O'Regan was a New York-based law firm focusing on international litigation and arbitration. It was co-founded in 1979 by Donald M. Waesche, Jr., Louis P. Sheinbaum and Francis M. O'Regan, partners from the Wall Street firm of Bigham, Englar, Jones & Houston.

<i>Saleh v. Bush</i>

Saleh v. Bush, 848 F.3d 880, was a class action lawsuit filed in 2013 against high-ranking members of the George W. Bush administration for their alleged involvement in premeditating and carrying out the Iraq War. In December 2014, the district court hearing the case ordered it dismissed with prejudice. The dismissal was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeal for the Ninth Circuit.

<i>Blumenthal v. Trump</i> Lawsuit between members of Congress and Donald Trump concerning emoluments

Blumenthal v. Trump, 949 F.3d 14, was a U.S. constitutional law and federal civil procedure lawsuit heard by Circuit Judges Henderson, Tatel, and Griffith, of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The case was on appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, where District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan granted in part and denied in part the President's motion to dismiss for lack of standing, denied the President's motion to dismiss for failure to state claim, and certified interlocutory appeal.

In United States law, a nationwide injunction is injunctive relief in which a court binds the federal government even in its relations with nonparties. In their prototypical form, nationwide injunctions are used to restrict the federal government from enforcing a statute or regulation.

Marcus Gray et al. v. Katy Perry et al. was a copyright infringement lawsuit against Katheryn Elizabeth Hudson, Jordan Houston, Lukasz Gottwald, Karl Martin Sandberg, Henry Russell Walter ("Cirkut"), Capitol Records and others, in which the plaintiffs Marcus Gray ("Flame"), Emanuel Lambert and Chike Ojukwu alleged that Perry's song "Dark Horse" infringed their exclusive rights in their song "Joyful Noise" pursuant to 17 U.S.C § 106.

References

  1. ↑ Wallinger, Hanna (2006). Transitions: Race, Culture, and the Dynamics of Change. LIT Verlag Berlin-Hamburg-Münster. p. 126. ISBN   3-8258-9531-9.
  2. ↑ Parks v. LaFace Records, 76F. Supp. 2d775 ( E.D. Mich. 1999).
  3. ↑ Parks v. LaFace Records, 329F.3d437 ( 6th Cir. 2003).
  4. ↑ "'I understand I am a symbol, but I have never gotten used to being a public person'", Associated Press State & Local Wire , December 4, 2004
  5. ↑ "Medical records show Rosa Parks had dementia as early as 2002", Associated Press State & Local Wire , January 13, 2005
  6. ↑ David Shepardson and Joe Menard, "Parks settles Outkast lawsuit's" [ permanent dead link ], Detroit News , April 15, 2005. Accessed online July 4, 2008.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.