The Barry White Family Trust U/A/D: December 19 v. Cooley
The Barry White Family Trust U/A/D: December 19, 1980, By its Duly Empowered Trustees v. Cooley
- Denise Cote
- 1:24-cv-07509
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 6
Barry White Family Trust v. Cooley: Judge Cote set filing rules for a proposed intervenor and self-represented defendant without deciding the copyright dispute.
Necole Key, Lady Key Management to the extent it seeks to participate, defendant Rodney David Oliver if he continues without a lawyer, the plaintiffs, Joe Cooley, and Fox Rothschild LLP.
What happened
The Barry White Family Trust sued Joe Cooley and Rodney David Oliver over alleged copyright infringement. Necole Key, who said she manages Oliver’s music rights, asked to join the case and sought dismissal, injunctions, declarations, and sanctions.
The court did not decide the copyright claims, Key’s request to intervene, or the defendants’ pending motion to dismiss. Instead, it ordered Key to file the claims or defenses supporting intervention by March 31, 2025, and limited her other submissions while her status was unresolved.
Judge Denise Cote also ruled that Lady Key Management could not proceed without a lawyer if it sought to participate, directed self-represented filings by Oliver through the court’s Pro Se Intake Unit, and ordered Fox Rothschild to serve the order on Key and Oliver.
The detailed version
- The Barry White Family Trust U/A/D: December 19 v. Cooley · No. 1:24-cv-07509
- Denise Cote
- Mar. 18, 2025
Background
The plaintiffs brought copyright-infringement claims against Joe Cooley and Rodney David Oliver. The defendants had moved to dismiss the amended complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction, but that motion was not decided in this order and was scheduled to become fully submitted on April 4, 2025.
Necole Key moved to intervene, meaning to join the lawsuit as a party. She proceeded without a lawyer and said she was Oliver’s music-rights manager. She asserted that the litigation had led to withholding of Oliver’s earnings, which deprived her of commission-based earnings. Key asked the court to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims and sought to bring her own claims against the plaintiffs. Her filings also described grievances involving Epic Records and other parties.
Fox Rothschild LLP, counsel for the defendants, notified the court that it intended to withdraw. Key and Oliver filed notices stating that they would proceed without lawyers. Key also filed an urgent motion seeking, among other relief, a stay of the action, an injunction, dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims, declaratory relief, and sanctions.
Court’s Orders
The court observed that some emails attached to Key’s filing indicated that she operated a business entity called Lady Key Management. The court ordered that, to the extent the rights manager seeking to participate was Lady Key Management rather than Key as an individual, the entity could not proceed without a lawyer admitted to practice in the district, even if Key was its only member.
The court ordered Key, if she continued seeking to intervene, to file by March 31, 2025, a pleading setting out the claims or defenses supporting intervention, as required by Rule 24(c) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. Any reply to an opposition to her intervention motion was due April 9, 2025. Apart from those specified filings, Key was ordered to stop sending submissions to the court until her status as a litigant was resolved. The court stated that Key was not then a litigant and therefore could not obtain relief at that time.
The court also ordered that, if Oliver continued to proceed without a lawyer, he must send communications to the court through the Pro Se Intake Unit rather than directly to the judge’s chambers. The order explained filing, service, and delivery procedures for a self-represented party and noted that Oliver could consider contacting the Federal Pro Se Legal Assistance Project. Finally, the court ordered Fox Rothschild to serve the order on Key and Oliver.
What the Order Did Not Decide
This order did not grant or deny the pending motion to dismiss, decide whether Key could intervene, resolve Key’s requested dismissal or other requested relief, or decide the underlying copyright-infringement claims. Judge Denise Cote entered case-management and filing directives on March 18, 2025.
Read the full 6-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.