Kesha Suffers Serious Setback in Dr. Luke Case

Kesha has been dealt another big defeat in her ongoing legal battle with Dr. Luke. The singer and the producer have been fighting in New York court since 2014, when the producer sued the singer for defamation and she countersued based on her assertions of rape and other abuse. In a decision released today, a judge has rejected Kesha’s attempt to amend her claims against Dr. Luke. Representatives for Kesha and Dr. Luke weren’t immediately available to respond to Pitchfork’s requests for comment.

In January, Kesha’s legal team asked a judge for permission to amend her claims against Dr. Luke. In the amended lawsuit, Kesha claimed Dr. Luke’s companies Prescription and KMI broke their contracts with her by failing to report and pay royalties. She also claimed Dr. Luke broke the general assumption of “good faith” that is implied in every contract through his alleged years of verbal abuse and physical threats against Kesha and his alleged failure, since February 2016, to expedite the release of her third album. She asked for judgments declaring the Prescription and KMI contracts invalid after the release of her third album, contending that she would otherwise need court supervision or help from Sony and claiming that the contracts violate a California labor law requiring all music contracts to end within seven years.

Now, in a 10-page ruling, New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich has denied Kesha’s request on all points. Kesha can’t claim breach of contract against KMI, the judge ruled, because her accounting statement, as provided by a witness for Dr. Luke, shows she owed Dr. Luke $1.3 million in royalties, and she did not provide her own evidence in rebuttal. Kesha can’t claim breach of contract against Prescription, Kornreich found, because she failed to give notice of the allegedly unsent accounting statements and royalty payments (as required under the contract). For the reasons above, the judge wrote, Kesha also can’t claim Dr. Luke failed to act in “good faith.”

Kornreich also rejected Kesha’s request for a judgment declaring her contracts invalid after the arrival of her third album. In Kesha’s argument that she would need court supervision or Sony’s assistance to keep fulfilling the contract otherwise, she maintained Dr. Luke’s contract with Sony “purportedly ends in March 2017.” She also contended that “Dr. Luke’s verbal abuse and physical threats against Kesha were not foreseeable” when the deals were made. The judge ruled it is “speculative” whether Sony’s contract with Dr. Luke ends this month. She also wrote that Dr. Luke’s “allegedly abusive behavior was foreseeable,” noting, “Kesha has admitted that Gottwald’s alleged abuse began at the outset of their relationship in 2005.” As for the California labor law requiring music contracts to end within seven years, the judge ruled Kesha can’t make a claim on this basis because her contracts were subject only to New York law.

In April 2016, Kornreich dismissed almost all of Kesha’s claims against Dr. Luke, including allegations of hate crimes and emotional distress, but didn’t dismiss her claims relating to contractual issues. Two months earlier, the judge denied Kesha a preliminary injunction that would have allowed her to sign to a label other than Dr. Luke’s Sony Music imprint Kemosabe Records while the case unfolded. (Kesha appealed.) Since then, Kesha has overhauled her legal team and dropped the 2014 lawsuit lawsuit she originally filed against Dr. Luke in California. More recently, Dr. Luke has moved to subpoena a Kesha fan and, in his own amended claims filed in January, alleged that Kesha sent Lady Gaga text messages claiming that Dr. Luke raped both Kesha and another female recording artist. In Tennessee, meanwhile, according to court documents viewed by Pitchfork, lawyers for Dr. Luke and Kesha’s mother, Pebe Sebert, have been holding conferences toward a potential settlement of Dr. Luke’s libel claims against Pebe.

 View Kornreich’s full decision below.

Comments are closed.