Nuthin' But a Fee Thang

Monster, LLC v. Superior Court, No. B278289 (D2d7 Jun. 21, 2017)

Plaintiff here claims that it was defrauded out of an interest in Dr. Dre’s headphone company, Beats by Dre, right before Dre sold Beats to a certain iconic computer company for $3 billion. But over the course of their relationship, Plaintiff and Beats had entered several agreements that contained both broad release language and provisions that that permitted a prevailing party to recover its fees. So in response to Plaintiff’s tort claims, Beats brought cross-claims alleging that Plaintiff was breaching the releases, thus causing Beats damages in the form of having to incur fees to defend the cases.