11. A Rock and Roll group known as the Diamonds formed in the 50\'s. Their bigge

Question

11. A Rock and Roll group known as the Diamonds formed in the 50's. Their biggest hit was "Little Darlin" and "The Strl." The group consisted of 4 original members, David Sommerville, Ted Kowalski, Phil Levitt and Bill Reed. David Sommerville the original lead singer and surviving member of the Diamonds appeared on the Rock & Roll Lawyer Show on Friday January 10, 2014. Great interview. Dave told us he had stopped performing. The next day, Saturday, January 11, 2014, the "Diamonds" were performing at the Dearborn Community Arts Center. There were no original members performing. When the original Diamonds did tour they were backed up with an exceptional touring band, headed by Gary Owens, a great saxophonist, who had been touring with the Diamonds since 1980's. On my Friday show, the promoter for the gig wanted the Rock and Roll Lawyer to run an advertisement regarding the show. He did but cut out the fact that the Diamonds were performing because he did not want to mislead the audience; that no original member would be performing The next night, January 1 1, there was a full house. Over 1000 tickets were sold. Some in the crowd were shocked when the Diamonds appeared. They had all new members doing the singing but with Gary O Diamond's hit songs. You could hear many disgruntled fans when they appeared. The crowd wens leading the backing group. They were exceptional, reproducing the angry as they thought they were going to see Dave Sommerville perform with at least one other original member 0 people demanded their money back that night. The promoter refused to return the money. The 80 people filed a class action lawsuit in the Wayne County Circuit Court a week later on January 20, 2014. The ticket for the show was $50. The Plaintiff's argued that they were misled in the advertisement as they expected at least one original member. The promoter argued that he had a signed contract from Gary Owens, with perform as "The Diamonds." He even included as Exhibit A, that Dave Sommerville licensed the use of the name to Gary Owens, with a cut of 20 percent from each show a warranty that they had the right to

Explanation / Answer

This case can be seen as a misrepresentation of facts from the side of the promoter.   This can be understood by the following protection provided to the consumer by the Michigan consumer protection act:-

1) Unfair, unconscionable, or deceptive methods, acts, or practices in the conduct of trade or commerce are unlawful and are defined as follows:

(a) Causing a probability of confusion or misunderstanding as to the source, sponsorship, approval, or certification of goods or services.

(b) Using deceptive representations or deceptive designations of geographic origin in connection with goods or services.

Apart from this, if we look at the clause (iii) provided in the text where it expresses that the name should not be so closely related to the original group so as to confuse the people, the things become quite clear why the plaintiff got confused as the name of the band was almost same as of the original band “diamond”.

If we look at the case, the promoter did not convey that the original member of the group diamond will not be playing in the band. When the band name Diamond appeared in the promotions, it is quite obvious that the audience will consider the original members to be the part of the band which was not the fact and thus this vital information was concealed by the promoter. Therefore, in my opinion, plaintiffs must be compensated on account of the inability of full disclosure from the promoter side.

Related Questions

Navigate

• Browse (All)
• Browse 1
• Subjects

---

---

Integrity-first tutoring: explanations and feedback only — we do not complete graded work. Learn more.