The British daughter and reggae legend Bob Marley’s wife are locked in a multimillion pound transatlantic legal battle over her inheritance 17-years after her father’s passing.
Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd was a Jamaican music supremo who founded the legendary Studio One label, where Marley and other reggae and ska stars were discovered.
At its height in the 1960s, it was known as the ‘Motown of Jamaica’, churning out thousands of hit singles by the likes of The Wailers, Toots and the Maytals and Dennis Brown.
He died in 2004 leaving behind his multimillion-pound estate, which included shares in the company that licences his vast catalog of music, to his family, which includes his daughter Morna Dodd from Birmingham.
However, after a series of spats in the Jamaican courts and the High Court in London, Mrs Dodd, 63, is still fighting to receive her share of her famous father’s riches.
Clement ‘Sir Coxsone’ Dodd was a Jamaican music supremo who founded the legendary Studio One label. Morna Dodd, her daughter, is fighting to get a piece of his estate.
According to lawyers, Mr Dodd’s estate has been deadlocked due to a series of “competing claims” being made by other potential heirs.
It led to the Administrator General in Jamaica taking over administration of the estate.
Last week, the latest round in Mrs Dodd’s fight reached the High Court – after Mrs Dodd was sued by the administrators of her own father’s estate.
The estate’s lawyers complained that she had passed off her reggae-themed Birmingham bar – the Coxsone Lounge – as being connected to her dad’s estate.
And she was also told she had no right last year to licence some of her father’s music to a Japanese company.
The case left Mrs Dodd facing £26,000 in lawyers’ bills, as well as the cost of stripping her father’s name from her bar.
The state of Jamaica could pursue her for any profits she made following the High Court judge Francesca Kaye’s ruling.
“Whatever her entitlement under that will, such assets are currently the property of the estate,” said the its barrister Dr Jamie Muir Wood.
“Any share of assets Mrs Dodd is entitled to have not yet vested in her and so she is not entitled to exploit the same.”
Representing herself in court, the chef and businesswoman insisted she didn’t mean to do anything wrong and claimed she needed money to pay lawyers in the long-running fight over her inheritance.
“I was financially embarrassed,” she told the judge.
“It’s been going on for 17 years – for 17 years I have pleaded with them.
“They say I can’t even attribute the lounge to my dad. There are 6,000 copyright titles, and I used 20.”
Mrs Dodd’s father grew his music business from humble beginnings, having started out as one of the island’s “sound system” operators, running mass parties from the 1950s onwards.
He had previously released singles. In 1963, he founded Studio One. Ska legends The Skatalites were there, and they cut dozens of songs per week.
Nighttime saw rising singers, including a teenage Bob Marley and fellow Wailers Peter Tosh or Bunny Wailer, add vocals.
The Wailers had their first hit, ‘Simmer Down’, while at Studio One and Marley even lived there for a time, bedding down in a back room provided to the young star by Mr Dodd.
The label’s main success was during the 1960s, but it continued into the 1970s, giving breaks to future reggae stars including Horace Andy and Burning Spear.
In 2004, Mr. Dodd, 72, died leaving behind a legacy of approximately 6,000 titles that were licensed by his company, Jamaica Recording and Publishing Company Limited.
His will divides his cash, property and shares among his family.
After his death, however, war lines were drawn between his heirs to contest the will’s validity.
And following a clash between Morna’s brother, Clement Junior, their stepmother Norma and stepsister Carol in 2010, the Jamaican Supreme Court ruled that the Administrator General of the island should administer his estate.
More than a decade later, the estate is still effectively deadlocked, with lawyers confirming that its administration had been held up due to “competing claims” to Dodd’s legacy.
Mrs Dodd even claimed last week that “heart-rending” questions had been raised as to whether she is Mr Dodd’s true daughter, but lawyers for the estate told Judge Kaye that it was never doubted.
“We have never suggested that she was not the daughter of Mr Dodd,” said the estate’s barrister, Dr Jamie Muir Wood.
The latest row spilled into court after Mrs Dodd used her father’s nickname for her Birmingham bar and grill, which lawyers claimed passed off the bar as being connected to his estate.
She had also attempted to licence some of her father’s tracks to a Japanese company, which the publishing company said she had no right to do.
“Although you’re a shareholder in that company, you are not a director and are therefore not entitled to exploit those works on behalf of the company,” Dr Muir Wood told her in court.
Mrs. Dodd also suggested that she be made a director at Jamaica Recording, also known as JamRec, instead of just acting as a minority shareholder.
That would be in everyone’s best interests, she claimed, as she has the know-how to maximise the estate’s ability to exploit her late father’s works.
After a brief hearing Judge Kaye told Mrs Dodd that she would need to rename the bar and that the licensing agreements she signed last summer were invalid.
“She is not legally permitted to act on behalf of the estate even if she is a beneficiary, she has no direct interest in the copyrights,” she said.
“The agreements she entered into last year were ones that she could not have entered into.”
The complex wrangle over Mr Dodd’s estate continues in Jamaica.