Commentary

Judge's mixed decision leaves Mariah Carey to defend claims in her brother's lawsuit over book

By David Baker   

   The decision by state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe to dismiss all Morgan Carey’s claims against the publishers of Mariah Carey’s book while allowing two of the same claims against Mariah Carey to continue is puzzling; It assumes that the publishers didn’t know and couldn’t be expected to know that publishing statements accusing two people of serious crimes without, apparently, any more then a blind belief in their author might make them also liable.

   The ruling comes almost a year after the complaint that started the lawsuit was filed. Since then the defendants have spent thousands of dollars trying to get the case thrown out before it started. For the publishers, it worked - unless an appeal is filed and that part of the decision is reversed. 

   But for Mariah Carey, the case continues, first with the service on Morgan’s attorneys of an answer - a paragraph by paragraph response to the allegations in the complaint, followed by written questions, and then depositions of the plaintiff and defendant.

   It’s at her deposition that defendant Carey will have to account for accusing Morgan of being a “sometimes drug dealing, being-in-the-system, drunk-ass brother.”

   Ironically, it’s likely it wasn’t Carey who came up with that dramatic line, but rather the person she hired to actually write the memoir, Michaela Angela Davis - who last week was removed from Morgan Carey’s lawsuit. Nevertheless, it’s Mariah Carey’s book and she is responsible for everything in it. 

  That includes claiming her sister Alison gave her Valium and offered her cocaine when she was 12 years old and Alison was 20 - both accusations of serious crimes known as defamation per se, meaning that financial loss or other damage doesn’t have to be proved.

   Alison denies it ever happened and says Mariah made up the story about her brain-damaged destitute sister and fed it to the  media in a callous effort to promote her book. 

   So unless Mariah Carey has or can concoct something to support her accusation, the case will be a ‘she said, she said’ battle. Forty years later, how do you prove something didn’t happen? How does Alison prove a negative? 

   Meanwhile, Morgan’s case now moves forward, which, without a settlement, will add to the permanent public record of Mariah Carey’s totally unnecessary cruel attack on her two less fortunate siblings.

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Decision issued

Mariah Carey now the sole defendant in brother Morgan Carey's lawsuit over singer's memoir

By David Baker

Much of Morgan Carey's lawsuit against his sister Mariah Carey was dismissed on Tuesday but the singer still faces legal proceedings over statements in her book The Meaning Of Mariah Carey that Morgan Carey dealt drugs, and suggested that he had been in prison.

In a 28-page decision, state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe dismissed all but two of Morgan's claims, along with all claims against the publishers of the book and its co-writer.

All the defendants had asked that the entire case be thrown out.

Mariah Carey's lawyers now have 20 days after service of the decision to respond with what's known as an "answer." After that the discovery process begins, with written questions and depositions of the brother and sister.

The lawsuit was filed almost a year ago, on March 3, 2021. Since then all sides have filed a series of motions and responses. Several agreed postponements of filing deadlines and a backlog in the court system caused by the COVID pandemic has kept the case on hold until now.

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Final wishes

 End of life will mean decisions for the family; And problems with another government agency

By David Baker

Alison Carey is 60 years old. Her mother, Patricia Carey, turns 85 this week and has been reported to be in declining physical and mental  health.

   Alison realizes that she will probably never see her mother again. She has mixed feelings about that.

  “She is an evil woman,” Alison says. “Nobody should be subjected to what she did to me when I was a child.”

    Alison was referring to being taken by her mother to terrifying 2 a.m. satanic rituals, where she was sexual abused.

   “But she is my mother. Sometimes I think I would like to speak to her, to ask her why she did it.  But most of the time I never want to see her again.”

   Patricia is reportedly living in a high-end facility in Florida with a team of aides to assist her. Alison is not sure that when her mother dies she will be told.

   With her own deteriorating health, Alison also thinks about the end of her life.  She says she often wonders if anyone will be at her funeral. She assumes none of her family members will be there. And certainly it would be the height of hypocrisy of if they attend after ignoring her for the latter part of her life, particularly since 2015 while she has struggled with a serious brain injury that left her with permanent damage to her short-term memory and vision.

   Alison also wonders if the family will pay for her funeral. Coming up with the money after she was gone would also be hypocritical. But refusing to do it would look bad, too. Either way, the decision will likely generate another set of headlines.

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Three years ago, all Alison’s teeth had to be removed, and then a set of dentures were broken in a fall. A Go Fund Me page seeking donations has raised $840, far short of the $2,500 needed for a new set. There is no indication that anyone in her family - siblings or offspring - has made a contribution.

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Back in December, the Social Security Administration got some embarrassing publicity after ignoring for three months Alison’s repeated letters informing the agency that she was living in an apartment, not in a nursing home, and reducing her benefit to $30 a month.

  Now the county department that administers SNAP payments - food stamps - is doing something similar. In a notice sent in January, the department states that Alison’s SNAP benefit is being cut from $250 a month to $25. The reason, the notice says, is that the oil that heats her apartment and her electricity are both included in the rent.

   Both statements are wrong. 

   The notice also says that Alison is entitled to receive copies of the documents on which the decision to cut the benefit was made. A written request for these documents was made last week. So far none have been received.

   Maybe it will take another newspaper story to restore this benefit. 

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Mariah Carey apparently didn’t consider that when she had her memoir written she was also creating her legacy. The book - with its attacks on her brother and sister - and the permanent public record on the Internet and in legal filings will determine how she is viewed long after her career is a fading memory for most people.

   And because of her own actions, much of that legacy will be largely dictated by her tragic and possibly by-then deceased sister and a former journalist from the U.K who was there for Alison when her family turned away.

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The Go Fund Me page for Alison’s dentures is at: https://gofund.me/9030f169

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Briefs

Ruling imminent in Mariah Carey book lawsuit; and stolen songs claims that the singer ignored

By David Baker

   Eleven months after the lawsuit in which Morgan Carey claims statements in Mariah Carey’s book The Meaning of Mariah Carey caused him to loose potential income, a judge may be about to issue a decision on Mariah Carey’s request to dismiss the case.

   “The shutdown of the courts due to the pandemic has delayed lots of cases,” a staff person in the office of state Supreme Court Justice Barbara Jaffe said last week. “But I think there will be a ruling soon.”

  Normally, by this point, discovery - the exchange of information prior to trial - would have been underway for several months. But in this case numerous motions and motions in opposition have been filed, and the deadlines on several of them have repeatedly been delayed by agreement between attorneys representing on one side, Morgan Carey, and on the other side, Mariah Carey, Mariah Carey’s co-writer and the publishers of the book. 

   Adding to the delay was that some documents were filed on paper, the staff person said.  Almost all papers are now filed electronically.

   Mariah Carey is asking the judge to throw out Morgan Carey’s claim before it starts. Morgan Carey wants to conduct limited discovery  - to include deposing Mariah Carey and other defendants in the case. He also wants copies of any emails and other documents that refer to the decision not to give him an opportunity to respond to statements about him in the book before it was published.

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      In the book, Mariah Carey refers to allegations that she stole songs.

     “A couple of people have come for “Hero” and for me, with both royalties and plagiarism claims. Three times I have been to court, and three times the cases have been thrown out.

   “The first time, the poor fool going after me had to pay a fine,” she claims, without explaining who imposed this penalty and why. 

    But she somehow forgot to mention the $500,000 that was paid to songwriter Kevin McCord to settle his claim that she copied his song  “I Want to Thank You” for her 1992 song “Make It Happen.” Or the $1 million that went to Sharon Taber and Ron Gonzalez, who claimed that her 1991 song “Can’t Let Go” was lifted from their composition “Right Before My Eyes.”

   Then there was an undisclosed sum paid to Maurice White over her song 1991 “Emotions” which he claimed was a rip off of his song “Best Of My Love.”

   And there are just the claims that went to court. There are likely other songwriters who believe their work also was stolen by Mariah Carey but don’t have the resources to start a legal battle with someone who has a team of lawyers to beat them down.

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