Songwriter wins $7.3M from Lady Gaga's ex-producer

NEWARK -- A songwriter who helped launch the career of Lady Gaga has prevailed in a lawsuit awarding her more than $7.3 million, representing a portion of a music producer's financial interest in the pop superstar's empire.

A jury in Newark also awarded Wendy Starland a portion of producer Rob Fusari's share of future profits from the career of Stefani Germanotta — aka Lady Gaga — that Fusari got in a 2011 court settlement with Germanotta, who honed her music and act while collaborating with Fusari at his Parsippany, N.J., studio.

Wendy Starland brought Stefani Germanotta — a.k.a. Lady Gaga — to Fusari's attention in 2006. According to previous court documents, after hearing her play, Fusari spent the next several months working with her every day, "radically reshaping her approach," and co-writing and co-producing songs that would appear on her breakthrough 2008 album The Fame.

But their professional and romantic relationship soured, leading to Fusari filing suit in 2010, alleging he and Germanotta had formed a joint business venture entitling him to a 20 percent share of song royalties, 15 percent of merchandising and other Lady Gaga-related income.

That $30.5 million suit was settled later in 2010, with no terms disclosed. U.S. District Judge Jose Linares on July 11 granted a joint motion by Germanotta and Fusari to keep the terms of that agreement sealed, in part to resolve another lawsuit filed by Fusari against Germanotta in New York.

Later that year, Starland filed suit against Fusari and his company for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, unjust enrichment and quantum meruit, claiming he had not compensated her as promised for connecting him with Germanotta.

Germanotta testified in a deposition in September for the Starland suit, saying "My understanding was that Wendy and him had initially agreed upon 50/50 perhaps before Wendy ever found me, and after I was signed to Rob and made music, Rob began to change his mind."

On Nov. 6, Starland and Fusari squared off before Linares and a jury in Newark for a trial that ended Nov. 17, with the jury finding for Starland. That same day, Linares granted a motion for Germanotta to be represented in the matter pro hac vice (this occasion only) by an out-of-state attorney.

According to court documents, the award to Starland includes $5,703,056 for breach of contract, including 50 percent of a half-million dollar payout to another songwriter, Sandy Linzer. Additional payouts were awarded for $900,000, representing 50 percent of Fusari's earnings from record and merchandising royalties over the next nine years, and $730,640, representing 50 percent of money paid to Fusari and retained by intellectual property business and legal advisers Dennis H. Cavanaugh and Associates.

Attorneys representing both parties did not respond to calls for comment.

Germanotta returned to Morris County in 2010 for the funeral of her grandfather, World War II veteran Joseph Germanotta, who lived in Montville for 15 years and later in a Lincoln Park nursing home. She attended a church funeral service at St. Pius X Church before traveling to East Hanover for internment services at Gates of Heaven Cemetery.