A New York appeals court has rejected 50 Cent’s request to automatically win a lawsuit against an ex-girlfriend over her “tell-all” Instagram posts.
The rapper sued Shaniqua Tompkins last year, claiming her posts violated a 2007 agreement in which she allegedly sold the star her life rights in perpetuity. Her lawyers fired back in January that she was coerced into signing that deal with threats and intimidation.
50’s lawyers had asked to win the case by “default,” citing the fact that it took Tompkins months to respond to it. But that argument got a hostile response from an appeals court at a hearing last month, and in a ruling Thursday (July 9) the court flatly rejected it.
In that ruling, obtained by Billboard, the appeals court said it was not even clear that Tompkins had ever even seen the rapper’s lawsuit.
“Defendant’s excuse for the delay in responding — that she did not receive the summons and complaint — was reasonable given that plaintiff failed to provide evidence that defendant lived at any of the addresses where service was attempted,” the court wrote.
50 Cent’s publishing company, G-Unit Books, sued last year after Tompkins, the mother of his child, Marquise Jackson, went viral with a series of Instagram posts commenting on the criminal trial of Sean “Diddy” Combs. The videos touched on the rapper’s infamous 2000 shooting, as well as his long-running feud with Combs.
In taking her to court, 50 Cent’s attorneys said his company had paid Tompkins $80,000 in 2007 in return for “all rights to exploit her life story” — a deal they explicitly say was meant to protect the rapper’s reputation.
“Jackson purchased these rights to preserve them for use in future biographical or autobiographical projects, but also in part because he was concerned that Tompkins would attempt to monetize their history and his name,” the rapper’s lawyers wrote at the time. “His concerns were ultimately proven correct.”
In January, Tompkins finally responded to the case, saying she had never been properly served with it. If given the chance to fully rebut 50 Cent’s accusations, she said she would be able to easily do so because the contract she signed had clearly been invalid.
“The agreement was presented as a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum, and I was given no opportunity to seek independent counsel or negotiate any terms,” Tompkins wrote in an affidavit at the time. “Fearing for my life and for my children’s lives, I signed the agreement under extreme duress.”
But owing to Tompkins’ delayed response, 50 Cent’s lawyers asked the judge for a default judgment, saying she had missed her shot to fight the case with such a response. The judge ultimately denied that request, prompting the rapper’s lawyer to file the appeal to the appellate court.
At a key hearing last month, that argument was met with a level of scrutiny that bordered on hostile: “So counsel, you’re asking for a default judgment for four months’ delay, where it doesn’t even appear that the defendant was served properly. Is that right?” one judge asked 50’s attorney before he could even begin his presentation.
Less than a month later, those same judges formally rejected 50’s appeal, sending the case back to the lower court for more litigation where Tompkins will have a chance to fully defend herself.
“We have considered plaintiff’s remaining contentions and find them unavailing,” the court wrote.
An attorney for 50 Cent’s company did not immediately return a request for comment on Thursday.
