Livingston v. Livingston Music: Preclusive Effect of State Probate Orders on §203 Copyright-Termination Challenges

Introduction

The decision in Tammy Livingston v. Jay Livingston Music, Inc., No. 24-5263 (6th Cir. July 7, 2025), chronicles an intra-family dispute over lucrative copyrights to the Oscar-winning catalogue of the late composer Jay Livingston. The plaintiff, granddaughter Tammy Livingston, sought a declaratory judgment invalidating a series of copyright-termination notices filed by her mother, Travilyn Livingston, under 17 U.S.C. § 203. The district court dismissed the complaint under Fed. R. Civ. P. 12(b)(6); the Sixth Circuit affirmed, and Judge Readler added a thought-provoking concurrence questioning whether § 203 provides an independent cause of action at all.

The ruling establishes two principal guideposts for federal copyright practice in the circuit:

State probate decrees can bar federal termination challenges through claim preclusion whenever they resolve trust-related ownership of the very copyrights subsequently disputed;
Pleading attacks on termination notices must allege notice-specific defects with particularity; blanket assertions or post-hoc elaboration in briefing will not survive Rule 12(b)(6).

Summary of the Judgment

Applying de novo review, the panel held:

The 2003 California probate order, approved by both parties, conclusively determined that Jay Livingston Music, Inc. owned all of Jay’s copyright interests. Under California claim-preclusion law, that judgment barred Tammy’s argument that the Family Trust retained the copyrights in 2015.
Because valid grants remained in force, Travilyn, as the author’s sole surviving child, possessed the statutory right to terminate them under § 203. Tammy’s remaining theories—improper execution of grants, “self-assignment,” factual misstatements by the district court, and generic notice-form objections—were either contradicted by exhibits or insufficiently pleaded.
Tammy’s alternative request for a declaration of her “state-law royalty right” failed for want of any pleaded state cause of action.
The court therefore affirmed dismissal of both declaratory claims.

Detailed Analysis

1. Precedents Cited and Their Influence

Brumley v. Albert E. Brumley & Sons, Inc., 822 F.3d 926 (6th Cir. 2016) – explained the operation of § 203 termination rights; supplied doctrinal background.
Migra v. Warren City Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ., 465 U.S. 75 (1984) – source for the full-faith-and-credit mandate requiring federal courts to apply state preclusion rules to state judgments.
Boeken v. Philip Morris USA, Inc., 230 P.3d 342 (Cal. 2010) – articulated California’s three-part test for claim preclusion, adopted by the panel.
Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662 (2009) & Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544 (2007) – controlled the sufficiency-of-pleading analysis.
Camreta v. Greene, 563 U.S. 692 (2011) – invoked to emphasize that appellate review focuses on judgments, not every statement in an opinion.

Each precedent bolstered the panel’s reasoning: the state probate order could not be re-litigated (Migra/Boeken), and without plausible factual allegations of statutory non-compliance (Iqbal/Twombly), the complaint collapsed.

2. Court’s Legal Reasoning

a. Claim Preclusion

The court first asked whether Tammy’s core assertion—the Family Trust owns the copyrights—was foreclosed by the 2003 California decree. Applying California law, the panel answered “yes” to all three elements:

Final probate judgment on the merits;
Identical parties (both Livingston women participated and approved the order);
The same “primary right” (ownership of Jay’s copyrights) was, or could have been, decided.

Because the probate court determined that the Trust had “no copyright interests,” Tammy could not plead that grants had lapsed or reverted to the Trust before Travilyn’s 2015 termination notices.

b. Statutory Preconditions for Termination

Once ownership was settled, the panel examined Tammy’s statutory objections:

Execution by the author: The May 2000 extension agreement bore Jay’s individual signature, satisfying § 203(a)’s reference to grants “executed by the author.”
Third-party transfer requirement: Exhibits attached to the complaint established that Travilyn—not Jay—owned the publishing company in 1984, defeating the “self-assignment” argument.
Notice-form defects: Only the “Que Sera, Sera” notice was pleaded with particularity; the rest were fatally conclusory. A plaintiff cannot amend by briefing (citing Bates v. Green Farms Condo Association).

c. Pleading a State-Law Royalty Claim

The complaint referenced a nebulous “state law right” to royalties but cited no statute, contract, or common-law doctrine. Under Iqbal, such a naked assertion is insufficient.

d. Concurring Opinion – The Hidden Question of Cause of Action

Judge Readler’s concurrence spotlighted an unresolved doctrinal puzzle: What is the underlying cause of action for someone who seeks to invalidate § 203 termination notices?

The Declaratory Judgment Act is only a remedial vehicle, not a source of substantive rights.
Section 203 contains no express private right of action, and any implied right would be doubtful under modern Sandoval-style analysis.
Copyright infringement suits under 17 U.S.C. § 501 may supply an indirect enforcement mechanism, but that avenue was not pursued here.

While not outcome-determinative (because neither party briefed it), the concurrence signals that future litigants will need to establish a valid cause of action—perhaps via infringement, state contract law, or a still-unrecognized federal implication—to sustain declaratory attacks on termination notices.

3. Potential Impact

Termination-notice litigation strategy: Litigants must scrutinize earlier state-court trust or probate orders before filing federal challenges; those orders may foreclose arguments about ownership or reversion.
Pleading standards: Complaints that target multiple termination notices must specify the defects of each notice—it is no longer safe to rely on generalized allegations.
Forum selection: Heirs may prefer state forums to settle intra-family ownership questions, knowing the resulting decrees can later immunize their federal termination filings.
Cause-of-action uncertainty: The concurrence foreshadows heightened scrutiny of declaratory suits untethered to a clear statutory or common-law right, potentially curbing purely defensive challenges to § 203 notices.

Complex Concepts Simplified

§ 203 Termination Right: A built-in “second bite at the apple,” allowing authors (or their heirs) to reclaim copyrights 35-40 years after transfer, on strict notice conditions.
Claim Preclusion (Res Judicata): Once a competent court finally decides an issue between the same parties, neither can re-litigate that issue or any claim arising from the same facts.
Declaratory Judgment Act: A procedural statute letting courts declare parties’ rights without awarding damages or injunctions—only available if some independent legal right is at stake.
Pleading Specificity: Under Twombly/Iqbal, a complaint must contain enough well-pleaded facts to render each claim “plausible,” not merely possible.

Conclusion

Livingston crystallizes two practical lessons for copyright heirs and practitioners. First, probate and trust orders matter: they can irrevocably settle copyright ownership, barring later federal challenges under § 203. Second, litigants must plead notice-specific defects with precision, and perhaps more importantly, must identify a viable cause of action beyond the Declaratory Judgment Act. Judge Readler’s concurrence leaves the bar with an open question—what statutory footing, if any, supports a freestanding suit to police termination notices? Until the Sixth Circuit (or Congress) supplies a definitive answer, prudent counsel will embed their § 203 challenges within infringement actions or other recognized claims. In the interim, Livingston stands as binding authority on the preclusive reach of state probate judgments and the rigor of Rule 12(b)(6) in the copyright-termination arena.