Cher Denied $1M Legal Fees; Mary Bono's Appeal Moves Forward

Cher's fee fight and Mary Bono's appeal became two parts of the same story this week. On July 20, Judge John A. Kronstadt of the Central District of California denied Cher's bid to recover $1,023,605.50 in attorney's fees after her royalties win against Mary Bono. Three days later, the Ninth Circuit docket for Mary Bono's appeal, Case No. 25-8085, carried a July 23, 2026 call time at 11:00 a.m. Pacific, though the same docket materials also noted an extended administrative closure period through July 30, 2026, making the procedural posture worth checking before treating argument as definitively going forward. [1][2]

The connection is not celebrity, and it is not simply that one side won below while the other side appealed. Both developments turn on the same characterization problem: whether the 1978 Marriage Settlement Agreement between Cher and Sonny Bono created state-law contractual rights to royalties and approvals, or whether those rights should be treated as federal copyright interests vulnerable to Copyright Act termination doctrine.

The Fee Ruling Turned On The Nature Of The Case

Cher had a straightforward practical argument: she prevailed in a fight over royalties from Sonny and Cher compositions, and the litigation had been expensive. The number she sought was not symbolic. It was a seven-figure request, $1,023,605.50, made after years of litigation over payments she said should have continued under the divorce settlement. Judge Kronstadt denied the motion because the fee statute Cher invoked did not fit the case he had adjudicated. [1]

Section 505 of the Copyright Act allows a court, in its discretion, to award a reasonable attorney's fee to a prevailing party in a copyright action. That threshold matters. A court does not reach ordinary copyright fee factors unless the action is actually one arising under the Copyright Act. In Judge Kronstadt's view, this dispute arose under California contract law because the rights Cher enforced came from the 1978 Marriage Settlement Agreement, not from ownership of copyrights themselves. [1]

That distinction is easy to blur in entertainment coverage because the money comes from songs. But a royalty stream can be connected to copyrighted works without itself being a copyright interest. The court's fee ruling treated Cher's rights as contractual royalty and approval rights created in the MSA. If that is the right frame, Section 505 never opens the door. The losing party's conduct may be frustrating, and the litigation may involve music catalogs, but those facts do not convert a contract action into a copyright case.

That is why Cher's conduct-based argument could not carry the motion. Her legal team argued that Mary Bono had 'dragged this case out for five years by taking patently unreasonable positions.' The accusation may explain why Cher sought fees, but it did not answer the eligibility question Judge Kronstadt had to decide first: whether there was a valid statutory basis for fee-shifting at all. [3]

Fogerty Did Not Get Cher Across The Threshold

Fee motions in copyright cases often bring Fogerty v. Fantasy into the conversation. Fogerty rejected a dual standard that favored prevailing plaintiffs over prevailing defendants and confirmed that prevailing parties on either side of a copyright case may be considered under evenhanded standards. But Fogerty presupposes a copyright case. The useful point here is narrower: if the underlying action is not a Copyright Act action, the court does not proceed to Fogerty-style discretionary analysis. [4]

That is the practical sting of the July 20 order. Cher won the royalties dispute below, but the court's legal characterization left her responsible for her own legal bill unless some other fee-shifting basis applied. A prevailing-party headline does not answer the fee question. The claim's source of law does.

The Appeal Puts The Same Line-Drawing Problem In A Different Place

Mary Bono's appeal moves the same contract-versus-copyright distinction from fees to merits. Her position depends on federal termination rights, especially Section 304(c), which allows certain authors or statutory successors to terminate pre-1978 copyright grants after specified conditions are met. Cher's position, which prevailed in the district court, depends on treating the MSA royalty provisions as separate from a grant of copyright and therefore outside the termination mechanism Mary Bono invoked. [5]

The district court's May 2024 ruling held that Mary Bono could not use termination notices to cut off Cher's entitlement to royalties under the MSA. Reporting at the time described approximately $418,000 in withheld royalties, a figure tied to the May 2024 ruling and potentially subject to later judgment accounting. [6]

For appeal purposes, the hard question is not whether Section 304(c) exists or whether termination rights can be powerful. They can. The question is whether those rights reach the particular entitlement Cher received in the divorce settlement. If the MSA gave Cher a contractual share of royalties generated by Sonny's interests, rather than an assignment or grant of copyright interests, then termination of earlier publishing grants does not necessarily terminate the contractual payment obligation.

The 1978 Timing Issue Makes The Appeal More Layered

The timing point matters because Section 304(c) applies to grants executed before January 1, 1978. The Cher-Sonny Bono MSA was executed on August 10, 1978. Mary Bono's notices did not simply target the MSA as a pre-1978 grant; they targeted Sonny Bono's earlier publishing grants. That creates a layered argument: termination may affect the earlier copyright grants, while the contested issue remains whether the later divorce-settlement royalty promise travels independently of those grants. [5]

That layering is why shorthand can mislead. Saying that Mary Bono is invoking copyright termination rights is accurate as far as it goes. Saying that those rights automatically erase Cher's settlement royalties is the contested leap. The MSA's date, the earlier publishing grants, and the difference between copyright ownership and payment rights all have to be kept separate.

What The Case Means For Drafting And Litigation Strategy

The case is useful for lawyers because it shows how an old settlement agreement can control modern litigation risk in more than one way. A royalty clause drafted in a family-law settlement may later sit next to copyright termination notices, catalog administration, estate interests, and fee motions. The words chosen in the settlement become the map for deciding which body of law applies.

For litigators, the fee ruling is also a reminder not to treat opponent behavior as a substitute for a fee entitlement. Bad faith, delay, or unreasonable positions may matter under the right rule, but they do not create Copyright Act fee eligibility where the claim itself is contractual. The court has to identify the source of the right before it can decide who pays for enforcing it.

For transactional lawyers, the lesson is quieter but more durable. If a settlement is intended to convey copyright interests, preserve royalty rights, create obligations independent of copyright ownership, or survive future statutory termination efforts, the drafting should say so with care. Decades later, the party seeking payment and the party seeking termination may both be litigating from language written for a different moment.

The Ninth Circuit Should Not Be Treated As A Foregone Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit docket information available in the research materials identifies a July 23, 2026 call time, but it also includes the administrative-closure notation extending through July 30, 2026. That does not support overconfident reporting about exactly what will occur in court without a docket check through the official appellate record. [2]

What can be said now is narrower and more useful: the appeal asks whether the district court was right to keep Cher's settlement rights outside Section 304(c)'s reach. The fee ruling, meanwhile, shows the same characterization choice operating at the back end of the case. One affects whether royalties keep flowing. The other affects whether the winner can shift more than $1 million in legal fees.

Cher, now 80, remains the recognizable name in the caption, and the case naturally draws attention because of the Sonny and Cher catalog. But the durable point is not biographical. It is doctrinal and practical: a royalty dispute can be copyright-adjacent without becoming a Copyright Act case, and in settlement-driven entertainment disputes, that distinction can decide both who gets paid and who pays the lawyers. [3]

References

1. Cher Can't Win $1M in Legal Bills From Sonny Bono's Widow, Judge Says, Billboard Pro, July 2026.
2. Docket for Ninth Circuit Case No. 25-8085, Justia.
3. Cher to Pay Over $1 Million in Her Own Legal Fees After Royalties Win Against Sonny Bono's Widow, People, July 21, 2026.
4. C.D. Cal. Says to Cher: I Got You Babe, Finnegan.
5. Cher v. Bono, Loeb & Loeb, June 2024.
6. Cher Wins Lawsuit Against Sonny Bono's Widow Over Royalties, Billboard Pro, May 2024.