A New Lawsuit Claims Kanye West Owes Over $400K to a New York Stylist
A new lawsuit filed by a New York-based stylist is alleging rapper Kanye West, now known as Ye, has failed to return a number of high-value apparel items.
According to a complaint filed by David Casavant, LLC in Los Angeles County Superior Court earlier this week, the rapper turned fashion mogul owes Casavant’s fashion rental service, David Casavant Archive, more than $416,000 after skipping out on monthly fees and neglecting to hand back 13 “rare, esteemed pieces.” Ye, along with his company Yeezy Apparel, LLC, are listed in the complaint.
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In the lawsuit, Casavant states that he agreed to lend 49 items from his archive to the rapper for one week starting Feb. 19, 2020. According to the invoice seen in the suit, many of the items came from designers like Raf Simons, Helmut Lang and Miu Miu.
On March 2, 2020, Casavant said he sent an invoice to Ye. Between on or about March 2020 and July 2020, Casavant said that Ye paid the rental fees for all 49 items and returned 36 of them to the archive. “Defendants (Ye) continued to pay the weekly rental fees for the remaining 13 outstanding items … which plaintiff (Casavant) invoiced weekly from March 2, 2020, through Oct. 29, 2020, in accordance with the original terms,” the lawsuit said.
Casavant then alleges that Ye stopped paying altogether while retaining all 13 outstanding items from Oct. 30, 2020, up through the filing of the complaint. “Defendants have not responded meaningfully to plaintiff’s numerous inquiries about defendants’ unpaid balance and the missing items, referring plaintiff to individuals without knowledge or authority to resolve the dispute, or advising plaintiff to send inquiries to inactive email accounts,” the lawsuit stated.
The Casavant Archive, which claims in the suit that it also rents to Lady Gaga, Kim Kardashian, Rihanna, Tom Brady, Kendrick Lamar and Paul McCartney, said those unpaid fees now total $221,810 – and that Ye must pay an additional $195,100 to replace the items if they are fully lost. Bringing the grand total to $416,910.
The filing said that the group enjoyed a productive relationship with Ye dating back to 2014, when the Archive began renting out pieces to Yeezy Apparel LLC as well as the artist himself. Ye would regularly extend rentals on certain items and continue to pay monthly fees, and when an item was occasionally lost, Yeezy was billed for the replacement.
Now, Casavant is seeking the total damages plus interest, attorney’s fees, cost of suits, and “any other and further legal and equitable relief as the Court deems just and proper,” the suit concluded.
Ye nor his representatives have not made any comment at this time. FN has reached out to both parties for comment, and have not heard back at the time of this posting.
This news follows the November news where Ye’s Yeezy brand agreed to pay $950,000 to settle a lawsuit that concerns shipping delays on products ordered online. According to reports of the civil suit, L.A. County District Attorney George Gascón and other lawyers alleged that Ye’s brand violated a state business code that requires products ordered online to be shipped within 30 days. According to the code, if items are not shipped in that time frame, a company must provide a refund, credit the account, send a written notice of delay, or offer a replacement product of similar quality.
Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Randolph M. Hammock signed the settlement judgement on Nov. 3. Ye will pay $200,000 in civil penalties to each of the four district attorney offices involved in the suit, $50,000 in restitution to the Consumer Protection Prosecution Trust Fund, and $25,000 in investigative costs to each of the four district attorneys’ offices.
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