YNOT – Two outstanding disputes over the sprawling Hustler porn empire will be fought in a Cincinnati courtroom early next year, a federal judge has decided.
Battling brothers Larry and Jimmy Flynt are scheduled to face U.S. District Judge William Bertelsman Jan. 18 in a case questioning ownership of the Hustler trademark. The judge said he also would hear a related suit about the Flynt brothers’ contentious partnership instead of allowing that issue to go before a California court, as Larry Flynt previously wished.
The lawsuits effectively ended what had been 40 years of peaceful coexistence between the brothers. For the past three years, the Flynt clan has been choosing sides in a fracas Larry Flynt is believed to have started when he fired Jimmy Flynt’s sons and subsequently sued them for using the family name in marketing their own erotic products.
Jimmy Flynt’s defense of his heirs resulted in Larry booting his brother from the Hustler empire and attempting to kick the younger sibling out of the Hustler retail store in Cincinnati. Jimmy, who has managed the store for years, returned his older brother’s opening salvo with a lawsuit claiming he is a partner in the iconic adult entertainment operation, not just an employee.
“He has not been a partner, is not one and will never be one,” Larry Flynt’s lawyer, Mark VanderLaan, told Cincinnati.com.
The partnership issue may not be so clear-cut, as Jimmy Flynt and his attorneys maintain the Hustler clubs the brothers began opening in the late 1960s were registered in Jimmy’s name because Larry’s criminal record prevented him from getting a liquor license. Jimmy’s lawsuit also alleges he made several significant decisions for the Hustler empire — including the one that saw the company branch into opening retail stores — and took his brother’s place at the top of the corporate hierarchy many times while Larry was indisposed physically or mentally.
Larry, however, is adamant his brother never has been more than an employee, despite the fact the two of them often faced the government and other legal foes as co-defendants.
“Jimmy didn’t add anything of value to the company, but I continued to employ him,” Larry Flynt told Cincinnati’s The Enquirer newspaper earlier this year. “He’s my brother. I don’t go around telling people he’s a bum.”
