Snoop Dogg and Death Row Records are returning the volley in Lydia Harris's massive lawsuit with blunt words and a stronger strategy. The rap titan and his legal team are not pulling any punches, accusing Harris of tugging an old "decades-old" legal battle into uncharted territory with little more than expired claims and courtroom drama.
Filed in Texas, the new lawsuit is the latest chapter in this legal odyssey, which grew out of Harris' claim that she was part of a group that started the famed West Coast company back in 1989, that she put $1.5 million into the venture, and that she was its first VP. She adds that she played a key role in forming Death Row, home to some of the biggest names in hip hop, and is due a big payday under a 2005 default judgment.
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But Snoop and his camp are responding, "Wait a minute." In a fresh motion to dismiss, his lawyers claimed that Harris' case was dead. They are waving at the original 2005 decision and saying it is way past its legal sell-by date. "The relevant statutes of limitations bar plaintiff's claims," the filing reads, according to Digital Music News.
And Snoop's camp isn't stopping with just asking the judge to throw out the suit, but they're looking to ensure that they deny the allegations made in a legal game of chin and kill any potential for the litigation to come flying back across the table. The motion seeks to prevent Harris from filing new lawsuits involving Death Row or its current owner. They call her a "bad faith litigant" and claim she's been "harassing" the label for years in California and now has taken the battle to Texas.
Harris, who was once married to Death Row co-founder Michael "Harry-O," is now launching her latest legal attack. She's aiming not only at Snoop and Suge Knight but also at industry titans like Universal Music Group, Interscope Records, and Time Warner. Her accusations? 40 Fraud upon the court, civil conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and abuse of process.
To avoid that judgment, defendants engaged in an entire playbook of legal antics to duck the 2005 judgment from squirreling away financial records down to filing intentionally misleading paperwork to even using bankruptcy as a dilatory measure," Harris wrote.
From the outside, it's a battle between old and new: a woman who feels her essential role in Death Row has been overlooked or erased and a contemporary Snoop scrambling to defend the legacy and the business he has built.
But while the courtroom figures out what comes next, This is about more than just a fight over money. It's a battle over history, honor, and the endlessly murky world of music-business power plays.
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