Graham Heirs Sue Clainos

Nick Clainos, the former president of Bill Graham Enterprises, and two other attorneys cheated the late promoter’s two sons out of priceless scrapbooks, artwork and other archival material, according to a suit filed by David Graham and Alexander Graham-Sult in San Francisco Oct. 27.

The complaint was filed against Clainos, attorneys Richard Greene and Linda McCall, their law firm of Greene Radovsky Maloney Share & Heinnigh, and online distributor Wolfgang’s Vault and its founders, Norton LLC and William Sagan, in U.S. District Court.

Among the charges are breach of fiduciary duty, breach of trust, conversion, fraud, negligence, concealment, unjust enrichment and copyright infringement.

Clainos, Bill Graham’s onetime confidant who served as estate executor as well as trustee of the promoter’s sons, failed to report some 100 sets of original concert posters, personal scrapbooks and other archival items to either Graham’s heirs or to a probate judge after Graham’s 1991 death, the suit alleges.

Attorneys Richard Greene and Linda McCall, Graham’s personal estate planners, allegedly abetted Clainos in the purported scheme by transferring the items to Bill Graham Enterprises for its later, and lucrative, sale to SFX.

Sagan and Norton later purchased the archives from SFX successor Live Nation and established the online distributor Wolfgang’s Vault, which sells concert recordings, posters and other memorabilia.

Items that were never intended for transfer and considered personal effects include scrapbooks personally created by Graham. According to court documents, Graham made about 100 such scrapbooks, each bound and meticulously maintained, for his personal collection. The suit claims these not all were accounted for in the estate.

Graham’s sons allege that Clainos and the attorneys “conspired to secretly transfer possession, control and title to all of the Archives from Bill Graham’s Estate to … Bill Graham Enterprises” by filing incomplete inventories and accountings of the estate’s assets.

The sons said they discovered records of the archives by happenstance in Nov. 2008, among 50 boxes slated for destruction at the company’s headquarters in San Francisco.

Among the documents was evidence of the existence of “copyrights and trademarks registered in Bill Graham’s individual name, the total number of Bill Graham’s personal scrapbooks, and Bill Graham’s personal 100 sets of the original early poster series.”

The trademark registrations, according to the complaint, include that of “The Fillmore” brand that Graham registered in his own name, and not in that of his business.

The suit charges that Clainos “executed a written assignment … prepared by the Greene firm, conveying, inter alia, all right and title to copyright … and “The Fillmore” trademark then claimed by or registered in Bill Graham’s name to BGE, all without notice to the beneficiaries of the Estate or approval of … the probate court.”

The suit claims that Clainos arranged for another, unnamed, BGE exec to “accept” the assignment on behalf of the company. “From there, Clainos negotiated a lucrative sale in 1997 of the Bill Graham companies [including that of Bill Graham Presents to SFX] which now included all of the copyrights and ‘The Fillmore’ trademark,” according to the complaint.

More than a decade later, Graham’s sons – both of whom have since moved away from the Bay Area – were able to review the contents of the boxes they’d acquired the year before. “[The sons] discovered the Assignment buried among numerous other documents – none of which had been disclosed to them by the people whom their father had entrusted to look after his Estate and his sons,” the complaint states.

The suit claims that Bill Graham provided the attorneys with all information about the value and intent regarding the archive during a revision of his will that had been prepared in the months prior to his death, and that the intent was for those assets to go to the estate, not the business.

“The Greene firm drafted a revised will for Bill Graham that was ready to be signed – indeed, Bill Graham had it on his desk for review at the time of his death,” according to the complaint. “By the terms of the executed will as well as the draft will that was never signed, Bill Graham’s testamentary intent was clear – he intended to give his entire estate to his family, with the majority going to his sons, David and Alex.”

Online distributor Wolfgang’s Vault and owners Norton LLC and William Sagan, who eventually bought the archive and rights to the posters, are named as defendants.

Graham’s sons said they learned in January that Sagan claimed to have at least 10 of their father’s personal scrapbooks in his possession.

They seek a court order prohibiting Wolfgang’s Vault from selling any more copies of the posters they claim were Graham’s personal effects. The suit also seeks unspecified damages.

Attempts to reach Clainos were unsuccessful at press time.