After abruptly severing a ten-plus year relationship last October, Jill Scott is being sued by her record label for allegedly breaching her contract, according to Billboard.com.
On Wednesday, Hidden Beach Records, the company that launched and nurtured the Grammy Award-winning singer’s career, filed a lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court claiming Scott owes damages under California’s Labor Code, also known as the De Havilland Law (named after 1940s actress Olivia de Havilland) for delivering only three of the six albums contracted to the record label.
According to the law the complaint was filed under, artists are not confined to their contracts for more than seven years. However, artists are required to reimburse their labels for the monetary amount they would have received had they fulfilled their contracts. Based on Scott’s past sales, revenue could amount in the millions.
Also outlined in the complaint was the preferential treatment Scott received by the label’s founder, Steve McKeever, that likely prolonged the length of their agreement.
In addition to granting her million-dollar advances, buying her luxurious gifts and funding a $450,000 concert DVD that she later asked not be released, Billboard.com reported that she also asked them to deviate from her recording schedule so she could pursue her acting career. To date, she has appeared in “Hounddog,” “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married?” and HBO’s “No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency.”
“Hidden Beach feels that Jill Scott is an incredibly talented artist,” Lawrence Hinkle, the company’s lawyer told Billboard.com. “No one regrets that this lawsuit had to be filed more than Hidden Beach, but its hands were tied and it had no other option.”
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