The five-year-plus legal battle between Chance The Rapper and his former manager, Pat Corcoran, ended Friday as a Cook County jury found Corcoran had failed to prove he was owed the $3.8 million in unpaid commissions and royalties he sought in his lawsuit against his former friend and business partner. <\/p>\n
\u201cI claim victory in the name of the. Lord,\u201d Chance, real name Chancelor Bennett, told the Sun-Times after the verdict was announced at the Daley Center. <\/p>\n
Jurors also ruled in Bennett\u2019s countersuit, which was combined with Corcoran\u2019s lawsuit for purposes of the trial. When the suit was filed, Chance originally had sought $1 million in damages. Jurors decided Corcoran must pay Bennett $35, and recommended that Corcoran turn over the internet domain name ChanceRaps.com, which Corcoran used to sell Chance the Rapper merchandise.<\/p>\n
Corcoran\u2019s team argued it was a split decision, with no substantial damages awarded to either side.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe respect the jury\u2019s decision, but the message to music managers is clear: Get it in writing,\u201d said Jay Scharkey, one of Corcoran\u2019s attorneys. \u201cThe jury award of $35 speaks to how seriously the jury viewed Chance\u2019s case.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jurors deliberated about two hours before reaching their verdict.<\/p>\n
Corcoran declined to comment to the Sun-Times. He had claimed he and the rapper had a \u201csunset clause\u201d entitling him to three years of earnings after he was terminated in April 2020 amid the fallout from Bennett\u2019s critically panned album \u201cThe Big Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the trial, jurors also heard details of Bennett\u2019s 2021 countersuit accusing Corcoran of breach of duty. <\/p>\n
Over their eight-year working relationship from 2012 to 2020, Bennett and Corcoran had been the music industry model for a successful independent artist-manager partnership without record label interference.<\/p>\n
But as both parties rested their cases earlier Friday, a different narrative emerged before the packed courtroom.<\/p>\n
Corcoran\u2019s legal team described a hardworking manager who deserved to be paid for contributing to the ascent of the Grammy-winning rapper while Bennett\u2019s attorneys tried to portray Corcoran as an opportunistic former employee who was fired for a reason and isn\u2019t owed anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ll hear this is a case about greed and people trying to glom onto someone famous and take from them. But that\u2019s not what this story is. It\u2019s about when someone becomes famous and forgets what it took to get him there,\u201d stated Robert Sweeney, lead attorney for Corcoran.<\/p>\n
\u201cChance wanted to be famous and Pat wanted to help,\u201d Sweeney added. \u201cPat believed in the mission and Pat was going to do whatever it took to make Chance famous.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his closing, Sweeney emphasized his client and Bennett had an agreement entitling Corcoran to 15% of net profits for any of the rapper\u2019s projects he worked on, no matter when the money actually came in \u2013 even if that was after Corcoran was fired. Based on that agreement, he asserted Corcoran was entitled not only to the sunset clause revenue, but also to \u201cprior to termination\u201d royalties as well as one-time fees for negotiations he conducted with Live Nation for a now-canceled 2019-2020 tour, a Ben & Jerry\u2019s brand partnership and the 2019 Netflix rap competition series \u201cRhythm & Flow.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter when money comes in, it matters if you worked on it,\u201d Sweeney told jurors. \u201cIf you worked on it, you get paid. Mr. Corcoran is here because he wants to get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett\u2019s legal team fought those assertions, arguing that Bennett and Corcoran never had a written contract. The two former partners famously worked on a 2013 handshake deal and verbal agreement \u2014 one Bennett\u2019s team claimed was never questioned until Corcoran was fired.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s not one single document in the seven years they worked together that shows any evidence of a sunset,\u201d stated Bennett\u2019s lead attorney, Precious Jacobs-Perry. Instead, Corcoran\u2019s legal team had relied on \u201cunfounded personal attacks\u201d that tried to paint Bennett as someone \u201ca flake and lazy\u201d while making \u201cThe Big Day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jacobs-Perry also alleged Corcoran was overpaid by $312,300 before his termination.<\/p>\n
\u201cPat\u2019s case is really about Pat\u2019s greed trying to take something that he does not deserve and that was never agreed to. \u2026 Pat has been fully compensated and is entitled to nothing more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bennett\u2019s attorneys focused on the reasons he countersued, alleging Corcoran mishandled several business deals with merchandise companies and was trying to collect kickbacks to benefit his separate management company, Haight Brand.<\/p>\n
\u201cChance sued Pat on principle after learning about the things Pat was doing behind his back,\u201d said Jacobs-Perry. \u201cChance decided to stand up for himself and artists everywhere. He made a choice early in his career to be independent, to own his own music and be free from labels and third parties \u2026 and it defined everything that followed.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The five-year-plus legal battle between Chance The Rapper and his former manager, Pat Corcoran, ended Friday as a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":536118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-536117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=536117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/536118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}