A country singer/songwriter who lives in Hardy in north Arkansas recently received a $2.1 million jury award against a Missouri bank for selling the master recordings of his songs and his recording equipment.
David Lynn Jones, who wrote “Living in the Promiseland,” which became a No. 1 hit for Willie Nelson in 1986, sued West Plains Bank & Trust of Missouri in 2012 in U.S. District Court in Batesville for selling the master tapes to 114 of his songs and his $35,000 recorder for just $430, according to his attorney, Gary Speed of Little Rock.
Jones, who had his own top 10 record in 1987 with “Bonnie Jean (Little Sister),” had given the equipment and the five albums’ worth of songs to his friend, Robert “Bobby” Roberts in West Plains, Missouri, for him to transfer from analog to digital.
Roberts, though, had defaulted on a loan with the bank, which then foreclosed on Roberts’ property, including his studio containing Jones’ songs and equipment, Speed said.
As a result, in 2011 the bank took possession of Jones’ property, even though Jones “didn’t have any obligation to West Plains Bank at all,” Speed said.
Roberts told the bank that the items belonged to Jones, but that argument fell on deaf ears. The items were then sold for $430. Because trash was in the studio, the bank thought the equipment and tapes had been abandoned, Speed said.
Jones sued the bank for taking the items.
During the five-day trial in March, the person who bought Jones’ items sold them back to him for $430.
Nevertheless, for years Jones “wasn’t able to have the songs mixed into digital works that could have been made available for downloading,” Speed said.
The jury awarded Jones $600,000 for compensatory damages and $1.5 million for punitive damages.
The bank is expected to file a motion for get a new trial.
Its attorney, Bryan Wade of Husch Blackwell LLP of Springfield, Missouri, didn’t immediately return a call for comment.