Legal

Jimmy Buffett’s widow has filed a court petition asking to replace her co-trustee on the late singer-songwriter’s $275 million estate, saying a business manager tapped to handle the assets has been “openly hostile and adversarial” while ignoring her requests for financial transparency.
The petition was filed Tuesday (June 3) by the late singer’s wife of 46 years, Jane Buffett, who married Jimmy Buffett in 1977 and was made sole beneficiary of a marital trust holding the bulk of the hitmaker’s assets upon his death in September 2023 at the age of 76. The court filing says these assets, including real estate and a 20% stake in his successful island-themed hospitality company Margaritaville, are worth roughly $275 million.

Jimmy’s will named Rick Mozenter, an accountant at the business management firm Gelfand Rennert & Feldman, as co-trustee to help Jane administer the estate. But Tuesday’s petition says that rather than help Jane, Mozenter has actually made life more difficult following her husband’s death.

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“Mr. Mozenter has failed to perform even the most basic tasks required of him in his role as co-trustee, including providing Mrs. Buffett with information concerning trust assets and finances, which has left Mrs. Buffett in the dark with regard to the state of her own finances,” write Jane’s lawyers from the firm Sullivan & Cromwell. “Along the way, Mr. Mozenter has belittled, disrespected and condescended to Mrs. Buffett in response to her reasonable requests for information she undoubtedly was entitled to receive.”

According to the court filing, Jane met with Mozenter a month after Jimmy’s death in October 2023 and asked how much income she should expect to receive annually from the trust. Mozenter dragged his feet for 16 months, Jane’s lawyers say, repeatedly ignoring her requests to get an answer as she tried to make plans for her future.

Mozenter finally provided this estimate in February 2025, and the results were “shocking.” Mozenter told Jane she would see less than $2 million in annual income — an amount that would not cover Jane’s expenses and “a remarkably poor return for a trust with an estimated $275 million in assets,” the petition states.

Jane’s lawyers say this estimate was especially surprising because the trust had received more than $14 million in distributions from Margaritaville over the previous 18 months. This made Jane concerned that Mozenter was mismanaging the trust and she requested additional financial information from him, but the accountant once again stonewalled.

The court filing also claims Mozenter has been “unprofessional and combative” to Jane and that he refused her request to sell a piece of Bahamas real estate, even though the Buffett family rarely uses this property and its costs more than $300,000 a year to operate. Mozenter has billed more than $1.7 million in fees while engaging in this alleged wrongdoing, Jane’s attorneys claim.

“Faced with what clearly has become an unsolvable rift with Mr. Mozenter, and the prospect of having to continue to unsuccessfully request that he discharge his duties, on May 30, 2025, Mrs. Buffett asked that Mr. Mozenter resign as co-trustee,” says the petition. “Mr. Mozenter refused, insisting that he remain in a position of authority over her wealth. The situation is untenable and Mrs. Buffett requests this court’s assistance to resolve it.”

Jane’s lawyers are asking a judge to remove Mozenter from the trust and replace him with a new co-trustee. The petition suggests Daniel Neidich, the CEO of investment firm Dune Real Estate Partners, for the job.

Mozenter did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the petition.

Lizzo is launching an appeal aimed at ending a sexual harassment lawsuit filed by her former backup dancers, calling it an “attack” on her “First Amendment right to perform her music and advocate for body positivity.”
The blockbuster case, filed in 2023, accuses the star (Melissa Jefferson) of sexual harassment and discrimination. Though a judge dismissed some claims last year – including a headline-grabbing claim about fat-shaming – he allowed the overall lawsuit to move ahead toward a jury trial.

In an opening brief filed last month, her attorneys urged an appeals court overturn that ruling and toss out the entire case. They say Lizzo’s behavior toward the dancers was clearly part of her artistic approach — and thus shielded by constitutional protections for free speech.

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“Plaintiffs’ suit [is] an attack on Lizzo’s First Amendment right to perform her music and advocate for body positivity,” writes Lizzo’s attorneys, who include prominent Hollywood defense attorney Marty Singer. “Rather than accept personal accountability, plaintiffs filed this shotgun action, taking aim at nearly every facet of Lizzo’s creative process.”

One key claim in the case against Lizzo is that she pushed the dancers to attend a sex show in Amsterdam’s Red Light District at a venue called Bananenbar, then pressured them to touch and engage with nude performers. But her lawyers say that incident – which they stress was entirely optional — was directly tied to the creation of her art and thus cannot form the basis of legal liablity.

“There’s no disagreement that Lizzo held these outings as a necessary part of her creative process,” Singer writes. “Early social gatherings during international tours (like the Bananenbar) are critical to teambuilding and fostering cohesion.”

The case against Lizzo, filed by Arianna Davis, Crystal Williams and Noelle Rodriguez, accused the singer and her Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc. of creating a hostile work environment via sexual harassment, religious and racial discrimination. It also accused her of disability discrimination based on weight-shaming – a loaded allegation against a star who had made body positivity a key part of her personal brand.

Lizzo quickly denied any wrongdoing, calling the claims “false” and “sensationalized” and vowing to fight back: “I am very open with my sexuality and expressing myself but I cannot accept or allow people to use that openness to make me out to be something I am not.”

The star’s legal defense centered on California’s so-called anti-SLAPP law — a special statute that makes it easier to quickly end lawsuits that threaten free speech. In seeking to dismiss the case under that law, Lizzo’s lawyers argued the dancers wanted to “silence” Lizzo and “weaponize” her creative expression against her.

In early 2024, Judge Mark H. Epstein partly endorsed that argument and tossed out several allegations, including the discrimination claims about fat-shaming. But he allowed numerous accusations to move ahead toward a potential trial, including those over the Amsterdam sex show.

“It is dangerous for the court to weigh in, ham-fisted, into constitutionally protected activity,” the judge wrote. “But it is equally dangerous to turn a blind eye to allegations of discrimination or other forms of misconduct merely because they take place in a speech-related environment.”

In appealing that ruling, Lizzo’s lawyers argue that it’s dangerous for judges to wade into an artist’s creative process. They cite earlier court rulings that say such work includes discussion of “many bizarre and potentially offensive ideas” and can be “unpredictable.”

“Judges must not dissect the creative process to determine what was necessary to achieve the final product and what was not,” Lizzo’s lawyers write. “By rejecting the artist’s proven experience for what is necessary to, and best enhances, her own art, the trial court stepped far outside its role.”

A rep for lawyers for Davis, Williams and Rodriguez did not immediately return a request for comment. They will file their own appellate brief later this month aimed at rebutting Lizzo’s arguments. The two sides will then argue the case before the court at some point in the coming months.

If the appeals court sides with Lizzo, the case will be dismissed. If the court sides with Davis, Williams and Rodriguez, the case will return to Epstein’s court and move toward an eventual jury trial.

Eminem’s music publisher is suing Meta over accusations that Facebook and Instagram made “Lose Yourself” and other iconic tracks available to billions of users without permission, violating copyright law on a “massive” scale in the pursuit of “obscene monetary benefit.”
In a complaint filed Friday (May 30) in federal court, Eight Mile Style alleged that the social media giant added Eminem’s songs to its music library without the necessary licenses, allowing users to add them to millions of videos that have been “viewed billions of times.”

“Meta’s years-long and ongoing infringement of the Eight Mile compositions is another case of a trillion (with a ‘T’) dollar company exploiting the creative efforts of musical artists for the obscene monetary benefit of its executives and shareholders without a license and without regard to the rights of the owners of the intellectual property,” Eight Mile Style’s lawyer, Richard Busch, wrote in the filing.

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Eight Mile’s lawyers made a point to note that the lawsuit was not about Facebook and Instagram users uploading songs illegally — an issue heavily litigated between tech companies and music firms for years — but about the platforms themselves actively infringing copyrights.

“The rampant infringement of which Meta is guilty is not a case of merely allowing its users to infringe,” Busch wrote. “Rather, this case involves Meta’s knowing infringement of the [Eminem songs] by first reproducing and storing them in Meta’s online Music Libraries, and then distributing them for users to select and incorporate into their own photos and videos.”

Eminem doesn’t own Eight Mile Style, and the rapper is not involved in the litigation. A spokesperson for Meta did not immediately return a request for comment. Reached by Billboard, Eight Mile’s attorney Busch said: “Everything we have to say is in the complaint.”

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05/30/2025

Eight Mile Style is no stranger to copyright litigation. The company spent years suing Spotify over claims that the streamer didn’t secure proper licenses before uploading Eminem’s music to the platform. That case was dismissed last year by a federal judge who said the publisher had waited too long to sue.

At the center of Friday’s lawsuit are the huge libraries of fully licensed music that modern social media platforms provide for users, making it easy to add their favorite songs to their videos and photos. Such catalogs were an attempt to fix the chaotic early days of social media, where users would upload infringing music and sites would take it down if flagged.

The key innovation of those libraries is that they were licensed by rightsholders, but Eight Mile Style says Meta has no such license to include Eminem’s music in the libraries on Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

“The Eight Mile compositions are some of the most valuable in the world, and Eight Mile Style is very protective of these iconic songs,” the company’s lawyers wrote in the lawsuit. “Defendants have enjoyed massive profits at Eight Mile Style’s expense, in an amount to be determined, by copying and making the Eight Mile compositions available to Meta’s billions of active daily users.”

Notably, Eight Mile’s lawyers say they have proof that Meta knew it needed a license for Eminem’s music but had failed to secure one.

The suit claims that in 2020, Meta negotiated a music license with Audiam, a digital rights collection agency, to cover music that appears on its platforms. During those talks, the suit says the social giant “tried to negotiate, unsuccessfully” to include the Eight Mile tracks in that deal — and came away from it knowing “that no license was granted by Audiam or Eight Mile Style as part of those negotiations.”

“Indeed, these facts were confirmed by Audiam prior to this litigation, and Meta has not provided Eight Mile Style with any license authorizing its use of the Eight Mile Compositions, despite repeated requests to do so,” Busch wrote in the Friday complaint. Audiam is not named in the suit nor accused of any wrongdoing.