Viv U settles suit
Payment in royalty case OK'd by court
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The settlement, in which Universal Music Group admitted no wrongdoing or liability, was approved Monday by Superior Court Judge Victoria Gerrard Chaney.
The case originated in 1999, when Peggy Lee filed suit claiming UMG had failed to pay millions of dollars to her and other musicians who recorded with the Decca Records label before 1962. Lee charged Decca committed fraud and breach of contract by improperly calculating royalties -- rates were based on LP sales and not CDs -- and delaying payments. The diskery also overcharged for services, such as album packaging, according to the suit. Each member of the class was said to be owed at least $50,000.
Cyrus Godfrey, one of the attorneys who represented Lee, said 90% of the group was already deceased, and it was time to settle the case for the survivors. Lee died in January at age 81.
The settlement did, however, have its detractors, among them actor Larry Hagman, whose late mother, Broadway star Mary Martin, recorded for Decca.
In making her decision, Judge Chaney noted that Hagman and one other objector represented less than two-tenths of 1% of the earnings of the entire group.
Chaney, in January, gave preliminary approval to a settlement between Lee and UMG. She also gave Lee's suit class-action status for settlement purposes, expanding its claims to cover other performers, including Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Bill Haley. At that time, Universal agreed to allot $700,000 for a trust for the artists signed to Decca Records before 1962 who cannot immediately be contacted.
When it became a class-action suit, several performers and their heirs chose not to join and filed separate suits --among them Loretta Lynn and the estates of Bing Crosby and Buddy Holly. Some of the claims are similar to claims in recent lawsuits brought by Courtney Love and the Dixie Chicks against their record labels.
(The Associated Press contributed to this report.)
