Lady A name dispute goes off rails as band files suit
Lady A is going to court. After negotiations broke down over use of the name, the country-music trio Lady A, formerly Lady Antebellum, is suing veteran blues singer Anita White, who has been using Lady A as a stage moniker for decades.
The band filed a trademark lawsuit in Nashville’s U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee on Wednesday over White’s “attempt to enforce purported trademark rights in a mark that Plaintiffs have held for more than a decade.” The group also says White demanded $10 million.
Band members Hillary Scott, Charles Kelley and David Haywood and their company, Lady A Entertainment, are seeking a declaratory judgment that would allow them to use the name without infringing on any of White’s trademark rights. They are not seeking any monetary damages through the action, but that they “continue to coexist.”
The lawsuit said that the band has long gone by Lady A informally and that White did not oppose any previous applications for the Lady A mark, nor did she seek to cancel any of the Lady A registrations or seek the trademark for herself.
“Today we are sad to share that our sincere hope to join together with Anita White in unity and common purpose has ended,” the Grammywinning group said in a statement Wednesday. “She and her team have demanded a $10 million payment, so reluctantly we have come to the conclusion that we need to ask a court to affirm our right to continue to use the name Lady A, a trademark we have held for many years ... We never even entertained the idea that she shouldn’t also be able to use the name Lady A, and never will — today’s action doesn’t change that.”