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Split Thread Trump-Kennedy center sues artist for cancelling because of name change

Zig keeps saying it doesn't matter. But it very well does. It's like agreeing to play in the Rose Bowl. And have the committee change the name to the the Crapper Bowl. Might be the exact same venue in Pasadena, but it no longer carries the same aura and prestige.

The idea that such a name change doesn't make difference is downright laughable.
 
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TragicMonkey said:
And that argument can be made for both sides here. As I'm certain it will be, in court, by people --forgive me-- better than us at translating this sort of argument into legalities.
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They can for sure. But that's the point. The conditions have changed.
 
psionl0 said:
If Redd can't get out of the contract then I wonder if he would be able to sue them for damages. Being linked to Trump is bound to cost him business.
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Yes. But proving damages would be the challenge for both parties.
 
It's not only a change of name, it's a change of corporation.

Trump has made a point of saying that the "Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts" has been changed by him to a different organisation with a "different focus". That could be construed as making it a different entity altogether, a "hostile takeover" if you prefer.

So if the organisation has changed owners, managers, direction, accounting practices and clientele, the artist is quite possibly entitled to claim that his previous contract with Kennedy Centre for Performing Arts has been voided because the entity he contracted with no longer exists. (In fact, all contracts with the previous entity could well have been voided, including employment contracts, but let's focus on this for the moment.) And since he has no contract with the "Donald J Trump and Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts", there is no contract to break with that organisation, and he can't therefore be sued for non-fulfilment.
 
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Ziggurat said:
It doesn't matter if the name change does something. What matters is if the name change does anything to the contract. And you haven't provided any reason to think it would. Nobody has.
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You seem to say that if the board had decided to change the name to "A. Hitler Memorial Center" any artists with contracts with the venue would still be forced to honour the contract? (This is not an argument that Trump is Hitler, but that renaming the venue in that way would be even worse).
 
Ziggurat said:
Even supposing it was an illegal name change, why would that allow Redd to break his contract? Unless the contract somehow makes reference to such conditions (which I find unlikely), I don't see how the name change has any effect at all on the contract or Redd's obligations under that contract even if the name change is illegal.

Whether the name change is related to anything else isn't a legally relevant question here. The legal question is, did Redd violate the terms of the contract, and if so, how much is he on the hook for? I have zero insight into that latter question, but the former question I can make some educated guesses on. Contracts often stipulate terms under which they can be cancelled unilaterally without penalty. Now, is it possible that the name change triggered such a term? That seems unlikely (why would anyone bother writing such a contingency into the contract? Was Redd expecting such a possibility?), and you aren't even arguing that it did. Is it possible that Redd was able to cancel without penalty due to some terms of the contract unrelated to the name change? That actually seems more likely than the name change triggering something, though still not a given. We cannot know either way for certain without seeing the contract. But unless the contract allowed for Redd to cancel without penalty, then he's on the hook for something, even if not a million. That's the nature of contracts.

It doesn't matter if the name change does something. What matters is if the name change does anything to the contract. And you haven't provided any reason to think it would. Nobody has.
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The material breach would be he is no longer performing at the venue he signed up to perform at. One of the determining issues in whether a change made unilaterally by one party could be judged to be a material breach of contract would be if the other party wouldn't have signed the contract under the new conditions. As I said earlier it would be unusual that one company in a contract changing its name would be a material breach of contract, it would change nothing essential in the contract but in this case it does change something that could be be argued to be a material breach. Consider If someone had signed a contract to perform at "The Martin Luther King Jr Theatre for supporting racial equality in the Entertainment Industry", and then the company owning the venue changed the venue's name to "The William Joseph Simmons theatre for supporting racial inequality in the Entertainment Industry", can you see how one side could argue that to be a material breach of the contract?

Is the KT center suing the performer under the terms of the contract?

ETA: Ninja'd
 
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Ziggurat said:
The name change is only material if the terms of the contract make it material.

...snip..
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Not at all. It could be something that neither party explicitly placed into a contract. It's one of the reasons why especially USA contracts tend to have a puff piece section making lofty and emotional declarations about the parties involved. Gives the lawyers more room to make money when one of the parties wants out of a contract. Indeed a joke about USA contracts is that they are only ever finally negotiated when the last legal appeal has ended.
 
Darat said:
The material breach would be he is no longer performing at the venue he signed up to perform at. One of the determining issues in whether a change made unilaterally by one party could be judged to be a material breach of contract would be if the other party wouldn't have signed the contract under the new conditions. As I said earlier it would be unusual that one company in a contract changing its name would be a material breach of contract, it would change nothing essential in the contract but in this case it does change something that could be be argued to be a material breach. Consider If someone had signed a contract to perform at "The Martin Luther King Jr Theatre for supporting racial equality in the Entertainment Industry", and then the company owning the venue changed the venue's name to "The William Joseph Simmons theatre for supporting racial inequality in the Entertainment Industry", can you see how one side could argue that to be a material breach of the contract?

Is the KT center suing the performer under the terms of the contract?

ETA: Ninja'd
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Indeed, and the only person who can speak to that that is the performer himself. If he says he would not have wanted to perform at a venue with that name - said it was because he objected to being associated with the name, and would never have signed, that is impossible to argue against.
 
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acbytesla said:
I think proof of the materiality of the name change will be seen in the upcoming year. This won't be the only artist who will choose not to perform there. I'm sure I could probably present affidavit after affidavit of artists who have performed at the JFK Performing Arts Center that today wouldn't perform there.
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Here are some starters for you... all of these oppose The Fat Orange Turd...

Mick Jagger
Lorde
Sia
Blondie
Sheryl Crow
Green Day
Lionel Richie
Elvis Costello
Keith Richards
Steven Tyler
Rosanne Cash
Adele
Aerosmith
Andrew Lloyd Webber
Beyonce
Bruce Springsteen
Nickelback
Credence Clearwater Rival
Dixie Chicks
Foo Fighters
Guns 'n' Roses
Everlast
Elton John
Linkin Park
Neil Young
Nik Kershaw
The O'Jays
Brian May (Queen)
Phil Collins
REM
Rihanna

... and there are more
 
steenkh said:
You seem to say that if the board had decided to change the name to "A. Hitler Memorial Center" any artists with contracts with the venue would still be forced to honour the contract? (This is not an argument that Trump is Hitler, but that renaming the venue in that way would be even worse).
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I disagree.
 
Darat said:
The material breach would be he is no longer performing at the venue he signed up to perform at. One of the determining issues in whether a change made unilaterally by one party could be judged to be a material breach of contract would be if the other party wouldn't have signed the contract under the new conditions. As I said earlier it would be unusual that one company in a contract changing its name would be a material breach of contract, it would change nothing essential in the contract but in this case it does change something that could be be argued to be a material breach. Consider If someone had signed a contract to perform at "The Martin Luther King Jr Theatre for supporting racial equality in the Entertainment Industry", and then the company owning the venue changed the venue's name to "The William Joseph Simmons theatre for supporting racial inequality in the Entertainment Industry", can you see how one side could argue that to be a material breach of the contract?

Is the KT center suing the performer under the terms of the contract?

ETA: Ninja'd
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I can't help but wonder if Zig thinks that say a name change from the Climate Protection Performing Arts Center to the ExxonMobil American Coal Institute for the Performing Arts isn't a material change in the contract?

Does he really believe that someone who was passionate about environmental protection would have agreed to a contract with the latter? I'm pretty sure the materiality of any contract is whether they would have agreed to the contract under both circumstances. I mean a change from the Shell Center to the ExxonMobil Center wouldn't be material. It wouldn't really change a thing. But this isn't that.
 
bruto said:
It's more than just a change of name, though. There's a fairly convincing argument that the change was actually illegal, and it's pretty transparently certain that the purpose of firing the board of directors and hiring a bunch of MAGA supporters, followed by that change of name, was to change the institution itself, and specifically to alter what it represents, how it operates, and whom it serves. It might well be argued that such an illegal takeover of the institution and dismissal of its founding charter could annul any contract made with its predecessor.

It seems endemic for right wing apologists to take every instance of anything as unique and unrelated to anything else. You might manage to argue that a mere change of the name on the building doesn't do anything, but along with impugning your own intelligence for pretending it does not stand for much more, you'd run the risk of denying any reason for doing it.
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If nothing else it politicised the institution and as a result performing there becomes at worst an explicitly political statement, at best something that might be considered or portrayed as one.
 
Ziggurat said:
Not really. Entities change their names all the time, doing so does not in general nullify or even modify contracts. Imagine what would happen if companies could void contracts by simply changing their name.
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Its not just the fact that "they changed their name", its what they changed it too.

Lets say (for example) that they changed the name of the venue to the "Hitler was a swell guy Performing arts center". An artist might want to avoid performing there because they would rightly want to avoid having their name associated with Hitler. Its the same with havigng the venue named Trump (except for the tiny moustache....)

I do think an artist has a reasonable expectation that any venue that they might perform at will not do anything to tarnish their name.
 
TragicMonkey said:
And that argument can be made for both sides here. As I'm certain it will be, in court, by people --forgive me-- better than us at translating this sort of argument into legalities.
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You are right. This is in the hands of the lawyers who have a better understanding of contract law and the issues involved.

I think people are right to be skeptical of this lawsuit's success because Trump and his Klan have a long history of messing up the law... between a judge sanctioning Trump and one of his lawyers for frivilous lawsuits, loosing repeatedly in court when they try to engage in malicious prosecutions, and seeing other cases get quickly dismissed (the Jan 6 lawsuits, Trump trying to sue someone for claiming he "wasn't a billionaire"). Because of their general incompetence its natural to assume this lawsuit will go the same way.
 
So far, rhe people that have cancelled performances at the Kennedy Center include:
Issa Rae, Rhiannon Giddens, Peter Wolf, Low Cut Connie, and the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C.
Lin-Manuel Miranda has canceled the entire Kennedy Center run of Hamilton.
 
Segnosaur said:
Its not just the fact that "they changed their name", its what they changed it too.

Lets say (for example) that they changed the name of the venue to the "Hitler was a swell guy Performing arts center". An artist might want to avoid performing there because they would rightly want to avoid having their name associated with Hitler. Its the same with havigng the venue named Trump
(except for the tiny moustache....)
I do think an artist has a reasonable expectation that any venue that they might perform at will not do anything to tarnish their name.
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And as is often humorously said "at least he loved his dogs", that can't be said for Trump.
 
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