Legal News

Cali High Court Slams Doors on Band Members

By Dan Slater

Of our elaborate plans, the end
Of everything that stands, the end
No safety or surprise, the end
I’ll never look into your eyes…again — “The End” by The Doors

It’s the legal end for Ray Manzarek and Robbie Krieger. The California Supreme Court has denied a petition to review a lower court’s decision that Manzarek and Krieger — the keyboardist and guitarist, respectively, of The Doors — be enjoined from performing, touring, promoting their band and otherwise holding themselves out to be The Doors, The Doors of the 21st Century or any other name that includes the words The Doors without the written consent of all partners of the Doors partnership. Here’s the PR Newswire report.

Members of The Doors. From left: John Densmore, Robbie Krieger, Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison. (AP Photo)

The court also permanently enjoined Manzarek and Krieger from using the name, likeness, voice or image of Jim Morrison to promote their band or their concerts, and ordered that Manzarek and Krieger return all profits earned by them to the rightful owner of The Doors name, a partnership composed of the three surviving band members and the successors to Jim Morrison, all of who were determined to be partners with a veto right in partnership matters.

The plaintiffs in the litigation were the band’s drummer John Densmore, the third surviving member of The Doors, and the Estates of Jim Morrison and Pam Courson, who was married to Morrison at the time of his death, at age 27, in a Paris apartment. Manzarek and Krieger are each 25 percent partners in The Doors partnership and will therefore share in the profits they’re required to disgorge to the partnership.

The lawyer for Densmore and the Coursons, Jerome Mandel of Mandel, Norwood & Grant, said: “This dispute was about protecting the integrity and legacy of what The Doors stood for . . .All decisions involving the group had to be unanimous, especially when it came to any actions that were inconsistent with Jim Morrison’s strong stand against the commercialism of their name.”

Jeffrey Forer, of Hinojosa & Wallet, repped the Morrison Estate at the trial. On appeal, Forer was joined by Louis A. Reisman and Blake Rummel of Weinstock, Manion, Reisman, Shore & Neumann. (Reisman is the general counsel for the Morrison family.) The defendants were repped by Lavely & Singer.

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on August 21, 2008 (boomark / email).