An appeals court has ruled that George Clinton must face a trial to determine whether a portion of the Parliament-Funkadelic catalog is co-owned by the heirs of late keyboardist Bernie Worrell.
In September, a federal judge in Detroit threw out the lawsuit brought by Worrell’s widow after determining that the statute of limitations had long expired. But the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed that dismissal on Wednesday (May 27), holding that it’s up to a jury to decide whether the claims are timely or not.
“The estate has successfully pointed to facts potentially rendering this the rare case in which a copyright-ownership claim may be brought a half-century after-the-fact,” wrote a panel of three appellate judges in the ruling, obtained by Billboard.
The dispute stems from a 1976 contract between Worrell and Clinton, in which the keyboardist released his ownership stake in the P-Funk masters in exchange for recorded royalties. This led to numerous court battles over the years about how to properly split these royalties, both during Worrell’s life and after his death from lung cancer in 2016.
The pivotal moment came in one such lawsuit in 2020, when Clinton’s attorneys claimed for the first time that the 1976 deal was null and void because Clinton never signed it. This led the Worrell estate to try a new tack and file the current lawsuit, which alleges that Worrell never stopped owning his share of the masters in the first place.
According to the Sixth Circuit, it remains unclear whether the statute of limitations for these claims expired decades ago or only began running in 2020. However, the judges said a trial is only appropriate on the songs expressly covered in that contract — those created between 1976 and 1979 — and not the entire catalog from Worrell’s time in P-Funk between 1969 and 1981.
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Clinton’s lawyers had separately argued that the case should be thrown out because there’s insufficient evidence of Worrell co-creating these P-Funk songs. The Sixth Circuit rejected this too on Wednesday, saying there’s clearly enough fodder for a jury to decide otherwise.
“To start, we need look no further than Clinton’s own admissions. He recognized in this litigation that Worrell ‘radically charted the course of emerging keyboard technology during the golden age of analog synthesis,’ and that he brought to the table a ‘sonic stew’ including ‘perfect pitch and a well-honed facility with a classical canon,’” wrote the panel. “These statements contradict any suggestion that Worrell was just a session player or hired hand.”
The case will now head back down to the federal district court to prepare for a trial, unless a settlement is reached. A lawyer for the Worrell estate, Richard Busch, said in a statement that the Sixth Circuit’s ruling “is a great step in the right direction.”
“Bernie Worrell was the heart and soul of Parliament-Funkadelic but had to spend years of his life chasing Mr. Clinton for what he believed Mr. Clinton owed him,” added Busch. “While he is no longer with us, Bernie’s loving wife Judie continues to fight for Bernie’s rights.”
Clinton’s attorney, Jim Allen, said in his own statement, “We respectfully disagree with the Sixth Circuit’s decision and believe it requires some unusually large leaps in logic, metaphysics and precedent to transform a disputed, judicially-invalidated 1976 agreement into a springboard for copyright claims fifty years later.”
Allen emphasized, however, that the ruling “is extraordinarily narrow” and allows for a trial on only “a tiny fraction of the decades-long body of work George Clinton created and led.”
“We also look forward to finally litigating this case in a courtroom rather than through the fog of mythology, revisionist history and shadow-boxing conducted by interests that have been hovering around the P-Funk business empire for decades without ever quite wanting to step fully into the light,” added Allen. “The Mothership keeps flying. Trial is next. We will prevail.”
Clinton is separately suing Universal Music Group (UMG) for freezing his royalties amid the Worrell litigation. That case remains pending.
