Daryl Hall is suing John Oates after more than 50 years together. Everything we know about the case.
33 Hot 100 hits. 14 million albums sold. Now a legal battle jeopardizes the most successful duo in pop history.
Daryl Hall is a maneater. John Oates’s kiss is not on Daryl’s list. Hall & Oates are out of touch and out of time. And now they’ll be facing off, one on one, in court. Say it isn’t so! Because we can’t go for that (no can do).
Yes, the Hall & Oates puns pretty much write themselves. But the court battle between Daryl Hall and John Oates really is no laughing matter. It presumably marks the end of the most successful duo in pop history — ahead of the Carpenters, the Everly Brothers and Simon & Garfunkel — after 33 Billboard Hot 100 hits, 14 million albums sold and more than 50 years together.
When the news broke on Nov. 17 — initially via a tweet by Nashville journalist Nate Rau — that Hall had filed a lawsuit against Oates in Nashville Chancery Court and had even taken out a temporary restraining order against his longtime musical partner, it was a shocker. While court documents remain sealed, more details have come to light regarding the legal war between the two War Babies legends. Here’s some adult education about the case.
So why is Hall suing Oates?
According to a Nov. 23 report by TMZ, Hall & Oates have been in arbitration over which songs Oates is allowed to perform live at his solo concerts. Oates, who played several gigs this month, has co-writing credit on many of the duo’s hits, including “She’s Gone,” “Sara Smile,” “You Make My Dreams,” “I Can’t Go for That,” and “Maneater,” but not on other crowd-pleasing classics like “Rich Girl,” “Kiss on My List,” “Private Eyes,” “One on One,” “Method of Modern Love” and “Say It Isn’t So.”
However, a Nov. 28 report by the Associated Press shows that the real battle is over Oates’s desire to sell his share of Whole Oats Enterprises LLP to Primary Wave IP Investment Management LLC. Hall's lawsuit and restraining order have temporarily blocked this sale, which Hall claims violates the terms of a business agreement forged years ago. In addition, an arbitrator must weigh in before the sale can proceed. Primary Wave IP actually already owns a significant interest in the Hall & Oates catalog due to a deal Hall made in 2006, but Hall has since admitted that he regretted that business decision. In a complaint obtained by People, Hall has argued that Oates’s sale would cause him “imminent irreparable harm.”
Can Hall really stop Oates from performing the band’s material? Is Oates legally only allowed to sing songs on which he has writing credit?
The answer is no can do, according to Michael Ackerman, a Pasadena, Calif.-based entertainment attorney who has represented record companies, music publishing companies, artists, managers, producers, documentary filmmakers, reality TV participants and others in negotiating and drafting contracts and in litigation for more 30 years.
“I don’t see how Daryl Hall can dictate the playlist of a John Oates solo show. The only license or permission legally required for live performance of songs is a public performance license, typically issued on a blanket basis by ASCAP, BMI or SESAC,” Ackerman, who is not party to this case, tells Yahoo Entertainment. “Unless they’ve changed affiliation, Daryl Hall and John Oates were with BMI since the 1970s. Because the only license required for a live show is a public performance license, which would be issued by BMI, which is typically obtained by the venue, not the performer, from BMI, and presumably every venue that John Oates has played or will play has obtained a license from BMI, there would seem to be no way to say that the performance, for example, of ‘Kiss on My List’ — a song John Oates did not write but Daryl Hall and Janna Allen did — is improper, because the public performance of it falls within the public performance license issued by BMI to that venue.”
That said, Ackerman notes that “there may be something in the agreement between Daryl Hall and John Oates, be it a partnership agreement for the LLP or a corporate operating agreement, that prevents one or the other from performing certain songs that were primarily composed by the other partner who is not in attendance. I doubt that’s the case, in part because it would be so much more advantageous to Daryl Hall, but it’s possible.”
Ackerman says it’s also possible that there is a claim within Hall’s suit regarding false or misleading advertising. “For example, Dennis DeYoung, formerly of Styx, cannot bill himself as ‘the voice of Styx,’ but he can say ‘performing the music of Styx,’ and so maybe there was an agreement between Daryl Hall and John Oates as to how they would bill themselves for solo shows,” Ackerman theorizes. “Perhaps John Oates is advertising his shows as playing ‘his classic Hall & Oates material,’ for example, and then he plays songs written by Daryl Hall. But even that is pretty tenuous in terms of impact. How many people would want a refund if John Oates played songs other than his own? My guess is not many — and even then, Daryl Hall would seem to lack legal standing in this instance to bring such an action, because the attendee at the [Oates] show would be the one harmed by the false designation, not Daryl Hall.”
Can Hall really stop Oates from selling his share of the band’s catalog to Primary Wave?
“Whether or not John Oates had a right to sell his share of the company would be dictated by the LLP agreement. It is common in such agreements, especially where it’s a two-partner or even three-partner entity, to include a right of first refusal if one partner wants to sell his or her share in the partnership. In that way, the other partner or partners may buy out the selling partner themselves,” Ackerman explains. “There could also be a matching right in such an agreement, which would provide for the other partners to be allowed to match any purchase price obtained by the selling partner.
“But this is all speculation,” the attorney continues. “What is likely is that there is either no language in the agreement limiting both partners' right to sell their shares, or more likely, there is some language in the agreement which limits the rights of each partner to sell in certain circumstances. I would imagine notice would be required to the other partner if one partner were to sell their share to a third party, and perhaps that notice was not given here. There could also be other provisions which set a price for a selling partner’s share to be acquired by the other partners. Without seeing the agreement, it’s impossible to say, but I suspect there is some language in the agreement about the sale of a partner’s interest to a third party, and that’s really why the temporary restraining order was issued — not because of the performance of certain songs in live shows.”
Why would Hall go to the extreme of filing for a temporary restraining order against Oates?
While most people assume restraining orders are a last resort due to a threat of violence, there are other reasons for such a move. “A temporary restraining order, or TRO, is typically an emergency remedy to stop something that is happening imminently from happening. It can be related to the threat of violence, either from a stalker or in a domestic situation, or it can be the sale of a publishing catalog or a company,” Ackerman explains. “To obtain a temporary restraining order, the movant must prove four things: the likelihood of success on the merits, that irreparable harm will result from the contemplated action, that less harm will result if the injunction is issued than will result if the defendant is allowed to do what is contemplated, and a determination that the public interest is best served by the issuance of the order.”
Ackerman notes that a motion, or request, for a temporary restraining order is usually not served on the defendant prior to filing with the court. “It’s usually an emergency motion that does not necessarily permit much argument, if any, by the opposing side prior to decision on the request for the TRO, which argument in opposition would be more common in a preliminary or permanent injunction motion,” he says. “So because Daryl Hall feared the imminent sale of John Oates’s portion of the business entity … or if Daryl Hall felt that the ‘Hall & Oates’ brand/trademark could be diluted because of John Oates’s public performances of some of these songs, this might have caused the ‘hurry-up offense’ type [of] technique used by Daryl Hall in this instance.”
What have Hall and Oates been up to — separately and together — in recent years?
The last decade and a half has been one big Hall & Oates revival. The prominent placement of “You Make My Dreams” in the 2009 Joseph Gordon-Levitt-and-Zooey Deschanel rom-com (500) Days of Summer, as well as songs in commercials for brands ranging from KFC to T.J. Maxx; Hall’s Webby Award-winning variety show, Live From Daryl’s House, which ran from 2007 to 2014 and was recently rebooted; and pop-culture homages like the Bird and the Bee’s album Interpreting the Masters Volume 1: A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates and Gym Class Heroes’ cheekily titled “Daryl Hall for President ’07 Tour” have introduced the duo to a whole new audience. Hall & Oates were finally inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2014, and they've collaborated on high-profile concert tours with fellow ’80s bands Tears for Fears and Squeeze. As Hall told Yahoo Entertainment in 2018, after “the media were a bunch of f***ing a**holes” to Hall & Oates for many years, there seemed to be a “sea change.”
With the public’s passion for all things Hall and all things Oates seemingly stronger than ever, fans new and old started to wonder if the duo would ever record another full album. Hall shot down such speculation in his 2018 Yahoo Entertainment interview, saying, “We’re not really into making albums, you know, together. We’re individuals. We share the stage. We love our music that we’ve done together in our career. But we have our own lives, and we have our own creative lives.” However, Hall & Oates did release their first original song since 2002, “Philly Forget Me Not,” in 2018, and at that time Hall said he and his bandmate were “bonded by our long relationship. I’ve known John since he was 17. We’ve experienced 10 lifetimes already. A lot of water has gone under the bridge, and that shared experience, I believe, is what bonds us and makes it easy for us to communicate. I always say it’s like a brother relationship.”
Sadly, this lawsuit seemingly puts a stop to all of that brotherly love and joint career momentum. Hall, when not shooting new Daryl’s House episodes, has been regularly touring recently with Todd Rundgren, while Oates has been rolling out new solo singles each month in 2023 and, as rock ’n’ roll’s undisputed “patron saint of facial hair,” serving as a Movember spokesperson. Oates is also most likely the Anteater on the current season of The Masked Singer — sparking speculation that he took the bizarre TV gig to make a quick paycheck amid this legal mess.
A hearing is set for Thursday, Nov. 30, to consider extending Hall’s restraining order against Oates. (Representatives for both parties did not respond to Yahoo Entertainment’s request for comment.) In the meantime, since it's that time of year, check out both renditions of their holiday classic — the Hall-fronted one and the less-often-heard Oates version — and remember them in happier times:
Read more from Yahoo Entertainment:
Daryl Hall talks career resurgence: 'The media were a bunch of f***ing a**holes'
John Oates on lost cult-classic 'She's Gone' video: 'Most hysterical thing we'd ever done'
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