Personal Manager’s compensation agreement with artist in entertainment industry can be enforced even though personal manager is not licensed talent agency

Relying on the legal doctrine of severability of contracts, a California court of appeals recently departed from prior precedent to hold that the Talent Agencies Act does not present an absolute bar to contractual claims by personal managers seeking compensation for services they provide to their celebrity clients.  The case is Marathon Entertainment, Inc. v. Blasi, which was decided on June 23, 2006. 

The case arose out of Marathon’s services as personal manager for Blasi, a television actor.  While serving as Blasi’s personal manager, Marathon provided the down payment on Blasi’s home, paid the salary of Blasi’s business manager, provided Blasi with professional and personal advice towards the advancement of her career, and paid her travel expenses.  In return for these services, Blasi promised to pay Marathon a commission percentage of her entertainment employment income; however, she later reneged on this promise and refused to pay Marathon commissions on earnings received from her acting engagement on “Strong Medicine,” a television series. 

Marathon filed an action before the labor commissioner to recover the commissions.  In those proceedings, Blasi argued that Marathon could not enforce its contract with Blasi because the contract violated the Talent Agencies Act.  Among other things, the Talent Agencies Act prohibits persons from procuring employment opportunities or engagements for artists in the entertainment industry unless the person is licensed as a talent agency.  Apparently, evidence was introduced to establish that while Marathon did not procure Blasi’s engagement on “Strong Medicine,” it did work with Blasi’s talent agent to procure other engagements for Blasi while serving as her personal manager.  Because Marathon was not a licensed talent agency, the labor commissioner agreed with Blasi that the personal manager contract sued on by Marathon was illegal and could not be enforced.

Marathon sought review of the case in a proceeding before a trial court.  The trial court adopted the labor commissioner’s view, which led Marathon to seek further review by the appeals court.  The appeals court reversed on the ground that neither the labor commissioner nor the trial court gave consideration to whether, under the doctrine of severability, any unlawful portions of Marathon’s contract with Blasi could be severed, such that the remaining lawful portions could be enforced.  The appeals court indicated that, under this doctrine, Marathon should be able to recover commissions from Blasi’s earnings on “Strong Medicine,” since there was no evidence establishing that Marathon procured Blasi’s engagement on that show, and provided that any alleged illegality did not “permeate” the entire contract so as to render it impossible to separate the legal objectives from the one alleged to be illegal.

Persons wishing further information or who have questions or comments about either this case or any of the cases that have appeared on this website can contact any of the attorneys at Epstein, Turner & Song.