A case launched last July when Scotty McCreery was sued by his former manager Todd Cassetty has been resolved by jury. The Tennessean reports that a jury has determined that Scotty owes his former manager $239,329 for management services over 5 months. As previously noted here, the initial lawsuit claimed that contrary to initial promises that Cassetty would be paid an industry standard 15% of all gross revenues during his tenure as manager, the McCreerys were offering only 2% by the end of Cassetty’s professional relationship with Scotty.
According to The Tennessean:
The parties never finalized a written agreement and ultimately ended their business relationship in April 2013. According to the lawsuit, McCreery had not compensated Cassety at the time they parted ways. The lawsuit quoted emails from McCreery in which he said, “I will make sure you get a large 15% touring check from FBMM this month.”
Additional claims filed by Cassetty were, as per The Tennessean, dismissed either voluntarily or by the jury. It’s good for both parties that what was basically a disagreement over the amount of money Todd Cassetty was owed has now been settled, and both parties can move on.
As for Scotty’s current manager situation, The Tennessean further notes that according to Cassetty’s lawsuit, Scotty’s mother Judy McCreery has taken on most managerial functions in his career. Scotty is currently charting in the country airplay t40 with the 2nd single (“Feelin’ It,” cowritten by Frank Rogers and Matthew West)) off his sophomore album, See You Tonight. That album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart (#6 all genre) after its 10/15/2013 release and has sold 236k as of June 15, 2014 according to Roughstock. Scotty scored his 1st t10 single with the #8 peaking and RIAA Gold-certified title track, which he cowrote with Zach Crowell and Ashley Gorley.
UPDATE: Scotty issued a statement claiming victory in the case:
I am very pleased with the management fee ruling of only $239,000, which was less than half of the $570,000 Mr. Cassetty requested. It was always my intention to pay Mr. Cassetty and indeed had offered to pay him more than once. His request, however, for over half a million dollars was too much for a few months of work.
While it has been difficult to risk having my reputation challenged, I always believed that the truth would prevail, and it has. I have a management team, including a professional business manager, in Nashville advising me. Now I am happy to put this behind me and focus on my music. As always, I am thankful to my fans for all of their support.
Standard PR to offset the PR damage done by the case. No doubt all parties learned some tough lessons from a relationship that started out with so much enthusiasm and good intentions but unfortunately broke down over time.