Death Row Records attorney David Kenner could face the husband of gangsta rap opponent C. Delores Tucker on opposite sides of a courtroom, according to a new appeal filed by the estate of the late civil rights leader.
According to the appeal, which was filed Feb. 8, William Tucker and the estate of C. Delores Tucker are hoping the court will take another look at lawsuits filed by Death Row and Interscope Records against his deceased wife, to see if the suits were done with malicious intent.
C. Delores Tucker was 78-years-old when she died in 2005.
Summary judgments were awarded in both cases, which stemmed from an August 1995 meeting between Death Row CEO Suge Knight and Tucker.
According to court documents, Kenner stated that Knight was offered $80 million dollars and two recording studios if he would agree to break Death Row’s contract with Interscope and sign a new contract with Warner Music Group.
Interscope charged Tucker with inducement to breach contract, interference with contractual relations and prospective business advantage and attempting to induce breach of fiduciary duty in its suit, which was filed days after Tucker’s offer was made.
Soon after, Death Row filed its own lawsuit as it charged Tucker and others with racketeering and/or aiding and abetting racketeering, conspiring to violate and abuse of process.
The latest appeal in the long running lawsuit references an ad placed in the Source magazine that, according to Tucker, was “a call for her death,” as well as lyrics from two songs from former Death Row artist Tupac Shakur.
“The two songs made by Tupac under the Death Row record label during the litigation demonstrate the strongest antipathy to Tucker, who is assailed in vile language,” the appeal noted as it cited the songs “How Do You Want It?” and “Wonda Why They Call U B***h”.
“A jury could well conclude, If this evidence does not exhibit malice, what would?,” the appeal reads.
Although Kenner did not have a hand in the creating the ad or co-writing Shakur’s lyrics, the Tuckers state that the attorney is “responsible for setting out the malicious imaginings of a client with such hate, or so a jury could conclude.”
“Kenner could be held responsible for the irresponsible assortment of criminal charges in the complaint against Tucker that he drafted and filed… A jury could well conclude that the special malice of the racketeering allegations owed their origin and presentation to the knowledge and skills of Kenner,” the appeal stated. “An attorney cannot escape liability by saying, ‘I was only a hired gun. My client and its CEO may have been malicious, but I was not.’ Kenner could be found to have begun and continued the suit sharing the malice of his client and to have expressed malice in the drafting of the complaint.”
If the appeal holds up in court, Kenner could be found guilty of filing a false report and or malicious lawsuit against the Tuckers.
