{"id":807184,"date":"2020-05-06T21:49:36","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T03:49:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=995168"},"modified":"2020-05-06T21:49:36","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T03:49:36","slug":"soundgarden-countersue-vicky-cornell-for-fraudulent-inducement-over-charity-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/soundgarden-countersue-vicky-cornell-for-fraudulent-inducement-over-charity-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Soundgarden Countersue Vicky Cornell for \u2018Fraudulent Inducement\u2019 Over Charity Show"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

The surviving members of Soundgarden<\/a> have countersued Chris Cornell\u2019s widow Vicky Cornell and the Chris Cornell estate, accusing them of \u201cfraudulent inducement\u201d for allegedly using revenue intended to be raised for charity for \u201cpersonal purposes for herself and her family,\u201d according to a lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The countersuit was filed in U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Florida, Miami division on Wednesday. In the suit, band members Kim Thayil, Matt  Cameron and Ben Shepherd claim that the band entered an \u201coral agreement\u201d with Vicky Cornell to perform for free during the \u201cI Am the Highway: A Tribute to Chris Cornell\u201d concert on January 16th, 2019<\/a> with the intent that funds would benefit The Chris and Vicky Cornell Foundation. The surviving band members had not played together as Soundgarden since Cornell\u2019s suicide until that benefit concert. The suit alleges the \u201crecipient(s) of the revenue\u201d from 2019 Chris Cornell tribute benefit concert \u201chave not been identified.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concert \u201cis believed to have raised many millions of dollars,\u201d the suit claims, but instead of the revenue being used for charitable purposes per their verbal agreement with Vicky Cornell, the suit alleges \u201cfraudulent inducement,\u201d claiming that \u201cVicky Cornell did not have the intention of using some or all of the revenue from the Cornell Concert for charitable purposes, but rather for personal purposes for herself and her family.\u201d It further claims that she knew her charitable \u201crepresentation was false, or exhibited recklessness and negligence as to its truth or falsity, for the purpose and intent of inducing Soundgarden into agreeing to perform at the Cornell Concert without compensation.\u201d It claims Soundgarden \u201csuffered damages\u201d and \u201creputational harm\u201d as a result.<\/p>\n

Reps for Vicky Cornell did not respond to multiple requests for comment.<\/p>\n

Beyond the concert revenue concerns, the countersuit also addresses issues with Vicky Cornell\u2019s alleged control over Soundgarden\u2019s social media accounts, which the band claims they have never given her permission to operate and that she has used and identified herself as \u201cSoundgarden.\u201d The suit claims she has \u201cremoved fan comments and has herself posted images and comments to publicly-accessible Band Social Media pages. Some of those postings by Vicky Cornell are intended to denigrate the Band and Surviving Band Members.\u201d<\/p>\n

The countersuit follows a lawsuit Vicky Cornell filed<\/a> in 2019 against the surviving Soundgarden bandmates claiming the band is withholding royalties from her over seven unreleased recordings Chris Cornell made before his death in 2017<\/a>. The suit alleges there was never any explicit agreement that these songs were for Soundgarden, and that Cornell was the exclusive owner of them.<\/p>\n

After Chris Cornell\u2019s death, the band claimed to have reached out to Vicky Cornell, who agreed to share the unreleased recordings with Soundgarden for a potential new album under the terms that they used one of Cornell\u2019s \u201ctrusted producers\u201d and kept her informed about a possible album marketing strategy. However, her suit claims the band said it was unwilling to commit to the producer, planned to bring in its own producers and musicians and wasn\u2019t willing to go \u201cthrough any type of approval process,\u201d ostensibly in regards to the marketing strategy.<\/p>\n

In the band\u2019s new countersuit, the surviving members also address Vicky Cornell\u2019s previous suit, stating, \u201cThe Complaint is an offensive recitation of false allegations and accusations. Soundgarden categorically denies every material contention lobbed by Vicky Cornell, who filed her Complaint \u2014 rashly and without good cause \u2014 with the true purpose of extorting Soundgarden into conceding rights to which she is not legally entitled, and of coercing Soundgarden to prematurely distribute Soundgarden funds to her.\u201d<\/p>\n

It further adds, \u201cThis legal action by Vicky Cornell is lamentable, preventable, and spurious.\u201d  The band is seeking \u201ccompensatory and general damages in an amount to be proven at trial,\u201d along with injunctions and declarations related to copyright and other ownership claims, punitive and exemplary damages, and other relief deemed by the court.<\/p>\n

Soundgarden\u2019s Countersuit Against Vicky Cornell<\/strong><\/p>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The surviving members of Soundgarden have countersued Chris Cornell\u2019s widow Vicky Cornell and the Chris Cornell estate, accusing them of \u201cfraudulent inducement\u201d for allegedly using revenue intended to be raised for charity for \u201cpersonal purposes for herself and her family,\u201d according to a lawsuit obtained by Rolling Stone. The countersuit was filed in U.S. District […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-807184","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-11 21:22:42","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}