The rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd was the subject of a recent Second Circuit decision in which the widow of band founder Ronnie Van Zant sued to enforce a contract against drummer Artimus Pyle and Cleopatra Films.
On October 20, 1977, a Convair propeller plane carrying the members of Lynyrd Skynyrd and a 20-person entourage ran out of fuel and crashed 300 yards from a runway in South Carolina. Band members Ronnie Van Zant, Steve Gaines, and backing vocalist Cassie Gaines perished in the crash, along with the pilots and the band’s road manager.
The crash had such an impact on the survivors that they entered into an oath, and then a formal consent agreement (that is, a judge issued a court order, approving the agreement), stipulating that they would not use the name Lynyrd Skynyrd again.
Artimus Pyle walked away from the crash with broken ribs. Almost 40 years later, Pyle entered into an agreement with Cleopatra Films to make a film about his life story as a member of Lynyrd Skynyrd, including the plane crash. The title of the still unreleased movie is Street Survivors: The True Story of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Plane Crash.
The Southern District of New York ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, finding that in breach of the formalized pact among the band members, the film is about Lynyrd Skynyrd, based on the scripts and title. The court enjoined the film from being released — after more than a million dollars had already been invested in its production – and awarded legal fees to the plaintiffs.
On appeal, the Second Circuit expressed concern about the trial court’s enforcing the consent order on Constitutional grounds. It was not a typical First Amendment dispute, because this was a private agreement that limited what other private parties could communicate. However, because a consent order means that breach of the agreement amounted to contempt of court — a governmental function — the district court’s enforcing the agreement did have the effect of preventing band members from exercising their free speech, and could be deemed to be a governmental prior restraint, and therefore unconstitutional.
The Second Circuit also gave heightened scrutiny to the consent order because two of the agreement’s provisions were in conflict. In one section the parties agreed “the individual defendants have the right to exploit his own respective life story, and to refer to Lynyrd Skynyrd, provided that no such exploitation is authorized which purports to be a history of the Lynyrd Skynyrd Band, as opposed to life story of the individual.” That probably sounded reasonable, at the time.
The next paragraph prohibited “…the exploitation in whole or part of the history of the Lynyrd Skynyrd band without the prior written approval of the estates” of the members who were killed. It also prohibited the use of the name and likeness of biographic material of the deceased band members.
The court found that the consent of each band member to tell his individual life story conflicted with the prohibition against telling the history of Lynyrd Skynyrd, because each band member’s life story was bound up in the history of the band. Pyle survived the plane crash, and it’s arguably the most significant part of his life story. To stop him from discussing the band would stop him from telling his life story.
The appellate court vacated the injunction and the award of attorney’s fees from the district court, because of the conflicting provisions of the consent agreement, as well as the constitutional question of prior restraint.
From the vantage point of the armchair, it appears that the only way to avoid this kind of dispute is to have an agreement that’s more clear. Vagueness just leads to litigation, and that can be a very expensive proposition— especially when it goes all the way up to an appellate court. The lack of clarity in an agreement that’s intended to resolve things can be a very expensive lack of clarity.
