“The Most Interesting Man in the World” may be a little less interesting after losing a lawsuit.
The “Most Interesting” actor famed for a series of Dos Equis commercials was ordered to pay nearly $60,000 in attorneys’ fees in the wake of a judge’s dismissal of the countersuit he filed against a businessman who alleges the beer ad star owes him and his company commissions.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Barbara Meiers ruled on May 4 that the countersuit brought by Jonathan Goldsmith infringed on the right of Butch Klein and Gold Levin Talent to bring their lawsuit and ordered it dismissed.
On July 13, she directed Goldsmith to pay $58,917 in attorneys’ fees to compensate Klein and Goldsmith for work their lawyers performed in fighting the countersuit, which alleged that Klein wrongfully disclosed the terms of a 2012 Dos Equis-Goldsmith contract.
Goldsmith’s lawyers have appealed the dismissal order.
Klein and Gold Levin Talent started the litigation by suing Goldsmith last Oct. 2, claiming that the defendant was relatively unknown until the beer ad turned out to be “the role of a lifetime” for him.
The suit maintains Gold Levin is entitled to 10 percent of the nearly $2 million Goldsmith will earn in 2015-16.
Goldsmith hired Gold Levin in 2002 to manage his career in exchange for his agreement to pay a percentage of his earnings from his television, film and other entertainment industry engagements, according to the lawsuit.
The Gold Levin suit states that Goldsmith paid commissions to Gold Levin from 2006-09, but stopped doing so last November, contending that the plaintiffs “had earned enough.”
But according to the countersuit, Goldsmith and his wife, Barbara, obtained the Dos Equis contract in 2006. Barbara Goldsmith joined Gold Levin two years earlier and “effectively managed the business,” according to the countersuit, which says she was her husband’s manager before she married him.
The combined efforts of the Goldsmiths have generated millions of dollars in revenue for Dos Equis and Gold Levin received a cut of Goldsmith’s earnings even though Klein and his company had nothing to do with “Jonathan’s breakout role,” according to the countersuit.
In March, Dos Equis, owned by Amsterdam-based brewer Heineken, announced is replacing the 77-year-old Goldsmith with another actor in its ads.
–City News Service