Judge dismisses musician's suit over use of name
By MATT WICKENHEISER, Portland Press Herald Writer
A U.S. District Court judge in Portland has dismissed a lawsuit by a Grammy-winning Yarmouth resident against a Japanese company that he claimed stole his name.
In essence, Judge Gene Carter's decision Friday found that U.S. courts had no jurisdiction over the case under federal law. Attorneys for 69-year-old jazz musician Cecil McBee said they were reviewing Carter's decision.
"We respectfully disagree with Judge Carter; we will determine our next step when we've had a chance to sit down with our client," said Robert O. Newton of PretiFlaherty. "I fully expect either we will be filing motions to reconsider or a notice of appeal to the First Circuit."
Todd Holbrook, a local attorney representing the Japanese company Delica Inc., said he hadn't yet informed his client of the decision, as the firm is 14 hours ahead of Maine. Delica owns a prosperous girls' clothing store in Japan named Cecil McBee.
"The bottom line is the plaintiff's complaints are based, with one exception, entirely on stuff going on in Japan," said Holbrook. "The only exception is that he and his law firm hired some Japanese translators in Maine to call Japanese stores and effectively trick young salesgirls into sending stuff, against corporate orders, to Maine."
McBee is a jazz musician who has performed for four decades, playing with musicians including Benny Goodman, Miles Davis, Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner. He's toured the globe many times over, to venues including the Montreux Jazz Festival in Switzerland, the Berlin Jazz Festival and the Antwerp Jazz Festival. He received a Grammy award in 1989 for his contribution to "Blues for John Coltrane."
Cecil McBee, the store chain, first appeared in 1984, according to court documents. The chain today is one of the hottest in Japan, comparable to The Gap in the United States.
The stores sell a variety of goods, from Cecil McBee wines to doggie sweaters, but the primary line is sassy-styled clothes for teen and preteen girls.
Delica Inc. suggests in court documents that it didn't steal the name from the musician, but rather chose the name for its pleasant sound, and the situation is nothing but a coincidence.
The musician has fought the company for about nine years in the Japanese court system, and in 2002, he filed the initial complaint in the American court system with PretiFlaherty. The law firm first had to prove the U.S. District Court in Maine had jurisdiction. That was difficult because Cecil McBee didn't have any stores or members of its board of directors here. Researchers working on the case, however, were able to use the company's Internet Web sites to track down contact information and order more than $3,000 in goods from 16 Cecil McBee stores.
A magistrate judge decided that the court had jurisdiction over the case, and the case proceeded in summer 2003. That decision was reversed Friday by Carter.
"This man (McBee) has been truly wronged, and it impacts him daily. It's not funny at all, and his lawsuit is true," said Newton. "We've worked really hard to dot our i's and cross our t's, because we felt strongly that this man really needed to have his case heard. To get short-circuited is just really disappointing to him."
Holbrook said he thought this case was just about money.
"I think that this case was about some lawyers seeing large dollar signs and taking a case on a contingency fee. The fact is that Mr. McBee knew of my client's use of the name - coincidental use of the name - for years, then someone happened to tell him how much business my client does," said Holbrook.
http://business.mainetoday.com/news/...beestory.shtml
Linear Mode
