Leonard Williams Can’t Revive Warner Music Royalties Class Suit

Musician Leonard Williams lost his bid to undo a lower court’s denial of class certification in a lawsuit against Warner Music Group Corp. over allegedly unpaid foreign streaming royalties, according to an unpublished decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

Williams and the Lenny Williams Production Co. argued that the Ninth Circuit’s standard for determining whether plaintiffs’ claims are typical of other would-be class members is permissive. But the district court’s conclusion that that the named plaintiffs were atypical because of unique defenses available to Warner was reasonable, the Monday ruling said.

The plaintiffs asked the ...