Judge Rules TED NUGENT Can't Get 'Lost Pay'

John S. Hausman of The Muskegon Chronicle has issued the following report:

Muskegon Summer Celebration scored a huge win Thursday in its defense against rocker Ted Nugent's breach-of-contract lawsuit.

Circuit Judge Timothy G. Hicks unexpectedly reversed himself and barred Nugent from claiming more than $1 million in damages for "future lost income" that Nugent asserts were the result of Muskegon's cancellation of a scheduled June 2003 concert.

The '70s rock star claims the festival's cancellation — and especially its press release blaming news reports about Nugent's "use of potentially offensive racial terms" in a Denver live radio interview — caused Nugent to miss out on future concert bookings to this day.

The bottom line: Even if he wins his lawsuit, the most Nugent can get is the $80,000 value of his alleged oral contract with Summer Celebration, plus whatever incidental income he might have earned from the show, such as T-shirt or CD sales.

Festival officials and their lawyer, Craig R. Noland, declined to comment. But the relief was evident on their faces after Hicks' end-of-the-day ruling.

Contrary to earlier reports, a big damage award to Nugent would have come straight out of Muskegon Summer Celebration coffers. The festival's liability insurance does not cover claims for breach of contract. Any award in the $1 million range would likely have devastated the finances of the small-town nonprofit festival.

Nugent's team was displeased with the judge's ruling. "We strongly disagree with it," said Nugent's trial lawyer, Cindy Rhodes Victor.

Hicks' ruling did not mean he necessarily found Nugent's "lost future income" claim unbelievable. In fact, the judge said from the bench — after jurors left for the long holiday weekend — that he was even more comfortable with letting that claim go to the jury than he had been before trial, based on testimony he'd heard in the first three days.

Read more at The Muskegon Chronicle.