If you don’t sign on the line, you can’t stash the cash

Singer Rod Stewart will have to return a $640,000 down payment and his business associates will have to pay more than $1 million in other damages after the singer was hit by a jury verdict in a breach of contract action.

The lawsuit arose out of a failed attempt to put together a Latin American tour. Under the proposed agreement, which was never signed, tour promoters were to pay Stewart $2.1 million.  The promoters gave him a down payment of $780,000. When the tour did not materialize, Stewart refused to return the down payment, claiming that the promoters had failed to raised the necessary amounts.

A Los Angeles jury disagreed. According to a report by the Celebrity Justice web site, jurors did not believe there had been a final contract between the parties.  One juror was quoted as saying that “without a signed deal, the jury felt Stewart shouldn’t have kept the cash.”  Stewart’s lawyer said the singer would appeal.