Kesha has faced a serious legal setback in her case against Lukasz “Dr. Luke” Gottwald. According to E! News, the appeals court rejected counterclaims, and as a result, will not be deciding whether the “Praying” singer can remove herself from contracts with Dr. Luke.
Kesha sued the music producer in 2014 for sexual assault and battery, but he filed a countersuit for defamation, The Hollywood Reporter reports. After dropping her suit for sexual abuse in 2016, Kesha had tried various ways to get out of contracts with Dr. Luke, E! News reports. The music producer’s suit continued, however.
“You can get a divorce from an abusive spouse,” Kesha stated in her countersuit. “You can dissolve a partnership if the relationship becomes irreconcilable. The same opportunity — to be liberated from the physical, emotional, and financial bondage of a destructive relationship — should be available to a recording artist.”
In March 2017, New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Kornreich denied Kesha to move forward with her countersuit to get out of contracts with Dr. Luke.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kesha claimed that she was owed royalties and would not be able to perform under the deals due to the acerbic relationship. Kornreich agreed with Dr. Luke’s attorneys that Kesha should have provided more evidence of contract breaches and that her allegations of not being able to perform while under the contract was grounded upon speculation.
“Kesha’s proposed amendments are palpably insufficient and devoid of merit,” New York’s First Department’s decision reads. “Her counterclaim seeking declaratory relief terminating the agreements on the ground of impossibility and impracticability of performance was speculative, contradicted by her own allegations that she had continued performing under the agreements and, as to at least one of the agreements, the impossibility was not produced by an unanticipated event that could not have been foreseen or guarded against.”
Kesha had performed at the 2018 Grammys and 2018 Billboard Music Awards, and released her third studio album “Rainbow” in August 2017, E! News reports.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Kesha’s request for New York to apply California’s seven-year rule limiting personal service contracts was denied.
“The court also properly denied Kesha leave to assert a counterclaim for declaratory relief terminating the agreements on the ground that they violate California Labor Code § 2855, as the unambiguous New York choice-of-law provisions contained in the agreements preclude the application of that California statute,” the decision reads.
The appellate court has also upheld Kornreich’s decision for Kesha to produce documents from her PR firm and previous attorney.
“The communications between her counsel and press agents do not reflect a discussion of legal strategy relevant to the pending litigation but, rather, a discussion of a public relations strategy, and are not protected under the attorney-client privilege,” the court said.
It appears that only Dr. Luke’s defamation case will only be heard as this case moves forward.