Former Mötley Crüe guitarist Mick Mars has chalked up a victory in court against his ex-bandmates.
According to a report by Rolling Stone, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James C. Chalfant ruled that Mötley Crüe unjustly "refused" to hand over their business reports to Mars during a hearing on Tuesday, January 16. Chalfant states that Mötley Crüe shouldn't have taken eight months to hand over the documents, and that the band is now entitled to pay for Mars' legal bills.
"The requests were not burdensome. Yet, Mars was compelled to file suit, and it appears plain that production would not have occurred without it. Mars is entitled to attorney fees," said Chalfant.
Chalfant further noted that Mötley Crüe claimed to have handed over everything Mars requested on November 2, 2023, which turned out not to be true. "These documents should have been produced without the need for prodding by Mars," added Chalfant. "[The] failure to produce the documents earlier than December 8 amounts to a refusal."
The flip side of this ruling is that Mars' requests 2023 general ledger entries will not be granted. Mötley Crüe attorney Sasha Frid of Miller Barondess, LLP claimed this as a win for the band, and not for Mars.
"The case is over. That's the key takeaway," said Frid in a statement to Rolling Stone. "By denying the petition as moot and ending the case, the court found that the band turned over all the documents to Mars and there is nothing more to do. The band went above and beyond its obligations by providing much more documents than the statute required – indeed, the court's decision explained the thousands of documents that the band provided to Mars."
Mars' lawyer Ed McPherson refuted Frid's statement, noting that the case of whether Mars was illegally fired from the band was now headed for private arbitration "Finally, somebody, somewhere told these guys they can't bully Mick anymore," said McPherson in a statement to the publication. "We're in the middle of a huge arbitration that will ultimately decide if Mick has to give up his shares or not, if they did things properly or not. Obviously we claim they didn't do anything properly. But they feel that they're above the rules. And that's what this lawsuit was about."
"This was them feeling they were above the rules, and this judge saying, 'No, you're not. And you may have given all the documents now, so there's nothing left for me to do, but, you're going to pay for it. I think that's a pretty huge victory for Mick. If they want to claim a victory, that's fine. But this is someone finally telling Mick, 'No, you're not crazy. These guys are bullying you. And we're not going to let it happen.'"
Mars originally filed a lawsuit against his former Mötley Crüe bandmates back in April 2023, alleging the band was screwing him over financially.
Mars claimed he originally told Mötley Crüe that he is still available to record with the band and to do limited performances. Instead, Mars said Mötley Crüe cut his profits down from 25 percent to 5 percent after announcing his retirement from the road. He further claimed that "the band's lawyers made him feel like he should be grateful for even that small cut, because they didn't feel they owed him anything at all" and that Mötley Crüe unilaterally decided to "remove" him from the band.
Mars also claimed Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx was "gaslighting" him about getting worse at guitar despite Sixx not "playing a single note on bass" throughout the band's original farewell tour. The lawsuit originally sought to allow Mars to have a look at the band's financials to see if he's truly getting ripped off, which is a portion of the case obviously now settled.
