From sonicnet.com, May 22, 2000 Jello Biafra Ordered to Pay Ex-Dead Kennedys Bandmates $200,000 Jurors find that former Dead Kennedys singer failed to pay back
royalties, adequately promote catalog. -Contributing Editor Richard B. Simon and Senior Writer Chris Nelson report: San Francisco -- A superior court jury slammed ex-Dead Kennedys singer
Jello Biafra on Friday, finding him liable for nearly all charges brought against him by his former bandmates. Damages stemming from charges that Biafra's label, Alternative Tentacles, failed to promote the group's
back catalog and failed to pay back royalties, among other complaints, totaled nearly $200,000 in punitive damages. "It's the ugliest thing I've ever had done to me in my entire life," a disheartened Biafra (born Eric
Reed Boucher) said after the verdict was read. "What they're basically doing is punishing me for sticking to the principles of the band and underground and independent culture." Guitarist East Bay Ray (born Ray
Pepperell) and bassist Klaus Flouride (Geoffrey Lyall) maintain that they and drummer D.H. Peligro (Darren Henley) are the true guardians of the band's democratic values, but they admit that the legal triumph was
bittersweet. "'Happy' is not the word, because we didn't want it to have to get this far, and we weren't out to defeat Biafra at all," Flouride said outside the courtroom. "[In an earlier press report] Biafra
was saying that it's absurd that it has to be settled in a court, [that] this is a stupid way to settle things, and it's stupid that it had to get this far, that it had to be settled here. ...We tried our darndest
to settle it." Ray said, "He just needed to talk to us." Surprised By Verdict Peligro was not at court to hear the verdict, but the other bandmembers and their attorneys spent the morning pacing the halls
of the San Francisco Superior Courthouse and wandering in and out of the courtroom where the trial has been held for close to three weeks, waiting for the jury -- in its third day of deliberation -- to come out with a
decision. Biafra was visibly stunned as ruling after ruling was read against him by the court clerk. The normally outspoken singer quietly answered attorney David Phillips' inquiries into his personal finances as
Phillips asked the jury to award more than $170,000 in additional punitive damaged. They awarded only $20,000. A handful of people -- including old friends of the entire band -- sat in the court gallery to hear
the verdict. Most were surprised at the sweeping vote, particularly the jury finding that Biafra and the label had failed to promote the band's back catalog. Several witnesses, including Offspring frontman
Dexter Holland, had testified that record companies genereally do not promote the back catalog of defunct bands. Biafra holds that his high-profile activities serve to promote the band. Ray, Flouride and Peligro
said they believe that Biafra should have prioritized promotion of the Dead Kennedys catalog over his solo releases. Biafra was awarded $5,000 in his countersuit against Ray, in which he accused the guitarist of
taking a portion of the band's royalties without his consent, as a fee for managing the business side of the band's four-man formal partnership, Decay music. The jury decided that Biafra and Ray were liable for fraud
as well as breaches of fiduciary (partnership) duty, but only Biafra was found to have committed the acts with malicious intent. Biafra said he plans to appeal. In addition, the jury found that Decay Music owns
the band's catalog, which includes such sarcastic punk classics such as "Kill the Poor" and "California Uber Alles." Biafra had argued that the songwriter for each track owned that work. Future Decisions
Judge Anne Bouliane will have the final say on the ownership issue and two other points decided as an advisory by the jury. Boulaine is expected to rule Wednesday on the ownership of the catalog, whether the Decay
partnership is run by majority or unanimous consent and whether Biafra was given "reasonable notice" of a September 1998 meeting at which the other three partners voted without him to terminate Alternative Tenticles'
license to manufacture and sell the band's music. The jury voted in favor of Ray, Peligro, and Flouride on all three issues. While Biafra's lawyers argued that majority rule would give the other members the
power to override his vote on future decisions, Ray and Flouride said the partners plan to make decisions democratically. Biafra disagreed. "Obviously if they take [the catalog] somewhere else, I'm gonna have no
involvement," Biafra said. "The last thing I wanted was for Dead Kennedys to be the ugliest memory of my whole life." |
