"I don’t think anyone should get tangled up with the IRS if they don’t have to, for one. You get mauled."

Hannah Cole interviews Susan Crile about her Tax Court victory.

"Loved by some and loathed by others, the Legs quickly became an iconic local landmark and the subject of a protracted legal dispute, beginning in 2008 and continuing today."

Adelaide Dunn (Advanced Topics in Art Law Class of 2016) reviews a documentary film about a zoning controversy over a Larry Rivers sculpture in the Hamptons.

"A New York art gallery owner was ordered ... to pay $500 for every day she continues to ignore inquiries by Joseph Statkun ..." (UPDATED)

". . . a contemporary artist who won a default judgment on claims the gallery cropped one of his paintings without permission."

UPDATE:  Judgment paid in full.

Disavowal

There's been some discussion of a recent Southern District decision dismissing a breach of fiduciary duty lawsuit against an art advisor having to do with another "disavowed" Cady Noland work.  See, for example, The Art Market Monitor here ("Did Cady Noland Case Clarify Role of Art Advisors?").  I think the facts/posture of the case were too weird to draw any general conclusions from it.  Basically, a collector purchased a Noland work from a gallery with a rescission clause providing for a refund if she disavowed the work.  Which she did.  The gallery returned part of the purchase price, but not all.  The art advisor's role in the transaction was unclear:  "despite the suggestion in plaintiff's briefing that [the collector] 'retained' and 'paid' [the advisor], ... the Amended Complaint nowhere alleges as much."  And it also wasn't clear to the Judge what the advisor was supposed to have done wrong.  The inclusion of the rescission clause "affirmatively benefited" the collector; the problem was just that the gallery failed to pay back the money as agreed.  You get the sense from reading the decision that the Court felt like the collector's real beef was with the gallery -- who for some reason has not been served.  All in all a pretty strange case and not one that I think will provide much guidance going forward.

Does California's new "autograph law" apply to works of art?

Sheppard Mullin says it might.

"After years of litigation, we have gotten rid of all of her claims and we are entitled to go forward with ours."

The New York Times:  Case Against Robert Motherwell’s Foundation Is Dismissed.

This one too has been long-running.  Background, from 2009, here.

"The outlook for New York’s largest art museums is a little unsettling."

The always-interesting Adrian Ellis on how things might look for museums over the next four years:  "A Trump presidency is anxiety-inducing not because of any direct financial impact, but because of its potential impact on the world economy, and therefore on New York philanthropy and tourism. Perhaps more significantly, a culture war between scapegoated elite liberal and humanities institutions and a populist presidency seems likely. This climate may in turn affect both their overall appeal to the narrowing band of philanthropists and put at risk the fiscal privileges they enjoy under section 501(c)(3) of the federal tax code."