The company behind the folk rock group Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young is suing a print shop for allegedly failing to fill online orders for box sets of the band’s 1974 reunion tour and refusing to return nearly $240,000 in revenue collected from the first buyers.
CSNY Recordings LLC filed the lawsuit Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court against D’Andrea Graphics Corp. and its owner, David D’Andrea. The lawsuit alleges breach of contract, intentional interference with contract and conversion. The complaint seeks unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.
A representative for D’Andrea did not immediately reply to an email seeking comment. Both CSNY Recordings and D’Andrea Graphics are based in Los Angeles.
According to the complaint, the two sides reached a verbal agreement in May for the manufacture and distribution by D’Andrea of 1,250 of the box sets. D’Andrea was to collect all revenue from sales on behalf of CSNY and to split the proceeds after recovering its out-of-pocket expenses, according to the suit.
The box sets were to be sold through a website with editorial content and photos provided by CSNY, the suit states. CSNY announced the release of the box set on May 29, the suit states.
But when CSNY attempted to get updates on sales from D’Andrea, it did not hear from the company until June 17, when D’Andrea said he did not understand why sales were lower than expected, according to the lawsuit. CSNY told D’Andrea to expand the shipping options, the suit states.
However, on July 18 D’Andrea repudiated the contract, the suit states. CSNY then found out that D’Andrea Graphics did not pay most of its vendors, including the website designer, according to the lawsuit.
D’Andrea received $237,620 from box set buyers, but refused CSNY’s demands to turn the money over to them after the band took over the manufacture and distribution of the music and set up a new website, the suit states.
CSNY was forced to tell many of the first customers to buy the box sets that their orders will likely not be shipped until October and several have cancelled their purchases and demanded refunds as a result, the suit states.
“Plaintiff has been forced to refund their purchases out of its own funds because plaintiff is not in possession of the pre-order revenues,” the suit states.
CSNY was first formed in 1968 by David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash and Neil Young.
— City News Service