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Surviving Doors about to settle suit
Friday, August 22, 2008
SAN FRANCISCO, California (AP) -- The end is near for a bitter legal dispute between the three surviving members of The Doors now that the California Supreme Court has refused to take up their case.
Keyboardist Ray Manzarek and guitarist Robby Krieger are on the hook for more than $5 million after they were found by lower courts to have improperly invoked The Doors' name and images during a 2003 concert tour. After the high court declined to hear their appeal on August 13, they'll have to pay up to drummer John Densmore, the parents of the deceased lead singer Jim Morrison and the parents of Morrison's deceased wife, Pamela Courson, who died in 1974.
The case goes back to 2002, when Densmore declined an offer from the other two to go on a concert tour as The Doors. Densmore said he didn't object to Manzarek and Krieger touring and singing The Doors' songs, as long as they didn't call themselves The Doors, use the group's distinctive logo or any other Morrison-era imagery.
"You can't call yourselves The Doors because you can't have The Doors without Jim Morrison," Densmore's attorney S. Jerome Mandel said.
Densmore and the parents sued Manzarek and Krieger in 2003 after the two began touring the country with Ian Astbury, former lead singer of The Cult, and calling themselves The Doors of the 21st Century.
Densmore complained that the phrase "of the 21st Century" was often little more than fine print in advertisements and that the new band displayed Morrison's image dozens of times during concerts. The tour grossed $8 million and netted $3.2 million, which went to the new band's company called Doors Touring, Inc. and none of which went to Densmore or the parents.
In 2005, a judge ordered the new band to stop using "The Doors" in any form and ordered Manzarek and Krieger to pay Densmore and the parents a combined $3.2 million, plus $2 million in legal costs.
An appeals court upheld the $3.2 million award, and is considering Manzarek and Krieger's appeal of the $2 million in legal costs as excessive.
"It's really disappointing," said lawyer Mark Poster, who represented Manzarek and Krieger. He said the two pursued the appeal so vigorously because a judge had overruled a jury decision in awarding Densmore damages.
The dispute stems from a 1970 agreement signed by the four original band members, including Morrison, that any business deal would require an unanimous vote of The Doors. The agreement was reached after Morrison and three others got into a "violent disagreement" over using "Light My Fire" in a Buick television commercial, according to the appeals court's decision in May backing Densmore.
"While the three partners had agreed to the commercial, Morrison vehemently disagreed and the commercial was not done," the appeals court wrote.
Since Morrison's death in Paris in 1971, the remaining band members and the parents split Morrison's share of the still-flourishing sale of The Doors' music and memorabilia. Each partner has veto power over business deals.
Seven years ago, for instance, General Motors offered the partnership $15 million to use "Light My Fire" to sell Cadillacs, and everyone but Densmore wanted to take the deal. Densmore also refused an endorsement deal offered by iPod maker Apple.
"Morrison had been adamant against doing commercials and Densmore wanted to honor Morrison's memory," the appeals court noted in its May ruling.
The Los Angeles-based band, which was inducted in 1992 into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a string of hits in the 1960s including "Break on Through," "L.A. Woman" and "Riders on the Storm."
Manzarek and Krieger now call themselves Riders on the Storm and continue to perform The Doors' songs live.
McCain and his mother don't recall old lawsuits
By MATTHEW BARAKAT – Aug 16, 2008
ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Republican presidential candidate John McCain's divorce was amicable enough that he and his ex-wife jointly brought a lawsuit 10 years later to recover damages for lost mementos, but it wasn't amicable enough to prevent McCain's mother from suing his ex-wife to get back some personal property.
Both lawsuits were settled out of court decades ago and before they went to trial, but records of them are kept in the archives of the city courthouse in Alexandria.
Curiously, although the records clearly list the plaintiffs, McCain's campaign says that the Arizona senator didn't know about or authorize the 1990 lawsuit with his ex-wife, Carol, and that his mother's 1980 lawsuit was filed "unintentionally." And McCain's 96-year-old mother, Roberta, says she never sued Carol.
But others involved dispute those assertions.
In the 1980 lawsuit, filed shortly after John and Carol McCain divorced, Roberta sued Carol to reclaim some personal property, including paintings, a needlepoint screen and a pair of earrings. A settlement was reached in 1981.
But in a brief telephone interview, Roberta denied filing the lawsuit.
"I have never heard of what you're talking about. ... I will put my hand on a Bible," she said, to attest that she had never sued Carol.
Roberta's denial prompted laughter from the ex-daughter-in-law.
"Yes, she sued me," Carol said in a brief phone interview.
Roberta's lawsuit sought personal property she claimed Carol was refusing to return. The disputed items included an "18th century Burmise Buddist Preist (Burmese Buddhist priest)" valued by Roberta at $2,000, and a "Butlers Tray for Liquor" she valued at $225.
McCain campaign spokesman Tucker Bounds said in an e-mail, "Of course, by all accounts the divorce was completely amicable. After John and Carol McCain's divorce, there was apparently some confusion about belongings that were Roberta McCain's but we understand the court papers were unintentionally filed, and the matter never went further in the legal system. It went nowhere, and was of no consequence."
In the 1990 lawsuit, John and Carol McCain jointly sought $1 million in punitive damages after a property management firm mistakenly threw out some McCain family treasures from a garage the McCains shared with an adjacent townhouse. The lost items included letters McCain wrote to his wife as a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
In his e-mail, Bounds said McCain "had no knowledge of the suit: He did not authorize the suit or participate in its filing."
But the lawyer who represented the McCains said she did indeed speak to McCain and get his permission to sue on his behalf.
"You can be sure that I talked to and got the permission of any client who is listed as a plaintiff," said attorney Barbara P. Beach.
It would be a serious violation to file an unauthorized lawsuit, and "I haven't been disbarred yet," Beach said with a laugh.
Beach said she's not surprised, though, that McCain doesn't remember the case. She recalled that Carol was much more deeply involved.
"I don't think it took more than 15 minutes of his time," Beach said. "The fact that they don't remember it doesn't bother me."
The 1990 lawsuit lists five pages of lost property, including autographed pictures of U.S. presidents, Super Bowl programs from every year the game was played and a Chinese Foo dog sculpture.
Some were surely items the family considered priceless: photos of McCain's grandfather alongside Gen. Douglas MacArthur when the Japanese surrendered in World War II, the letters McCain wrote as a POW and the press clippings documenting his release.
Much of the property appears to be memorabilia of Carol's days running the White House Visitors Office under President Reagan, including several dozen wooden Easter eggs from the annual white House Easter Egg Roll, signed by such celebrities as Burt Reynolds and Brooke Shields.
The lawsuit was settled for an undisclosed amount.
According to court papers, when the townhouse next door to the McCains' townhouse changed hands, a property management firm mistakenly threw everything out of the garage, unaware that half the garage belonged to the McCains.
By 1990, only Carol lived in Alexandria, but she and her ex-husband continued to jointly own the property.
The defendants argued the McCains were out of line in seeking punitive damages because there was no evidence anybody acted maliciously.
Darren McKinney, a spokesman for the American Tort Reform Association, said, "Plaintiffs' lawyers will routinely ask for significant damages to try and prompt a settlement."
Carol said she had no interest in discussing details of the two lawsuits.
"What possible difference could it make? It was all 25 years ago," she said. "I wish him well, but I don't talk to reporters."
In his autobiography, McCain has taken responsibility for the breakup of his marriage. Carol was friendly with prominent Republicans and civic leaders, including the Reagans and billionaire H. Ross Perot, who at times treated John McCain coolly after the divorce.
FDA: LDL-lowering drug may be linked to cancer risk
August 22, 2008
The FDA alerted healthcare professionals Thursday of the possible relationship between simvastatin plus ezetimibe and an increased incidence of cancer. The alert comes after the FDA received preliminary data from the Simvastatin Ezetimibe Aortic Stenosis trial.
Researchers from the SEAS trial enrolled 1,873 patients with mild to moderate aortic stenosis into the randomized, placebo-controlled study. They assigned patients either placebo or an aggressive LDL-lowering therapy that included a combination of 40 mg/day simvastatin and 10 mg/day of ezetimibe (Vytorin, Merck). They followed the participants for up to four years.
The combination of simvastatin and ezetimibe lowered LDL by an average of 76 mg/dL (61%). The researchers also reported that 688 patients had one or more of the primary endpoint events. There was no difference between the placebo group and the treatment group for the combined primary endpoint of major cardiovascular events (333 vs. 355; HR=0.96; 95% CI, 0.83-1.12).
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