The widow of ZZ Top co-founder Dusty Hill has secured an injunction against two Houston auctioneers who, she says, falsely advertised that items they sold in June were memorabilia from “the estate of Dusty Hill.”
Charleen McCrory Hill, Dusty Hill’s wife of nearly 20 years, said the auction included furniture from a home in The Woodlands that they sold nine years ago, as well as items that “were never owned by Dusty and Charleen,” according to a filing in Harris County District Judge Elaine H. Palmer’s court.
Palmer on June 30 granted the widow’s request for a temporary injunction, in force until a scheduled civil trial date of May 22, 2023. The injunction prohibits the auctioneers, Dominique Kendall and Thom Anderson, or their known business entities from using the name or likeness of Dusty Hill in connection with any future sales; selling or promoting for sale any items in their possession as being from the estate of Dusty Hill; and “exhausting, distributing or transferring” any proceeds from the June sale.
The widow added that she never authorized the sale, or even knew about it, until she saw news coverage of the planned sale a few days before it took place, from June 9 to June 11.
A promotional flyer about the event invited attendees to “own a piece of rock & roll history” from “the estate of ZZ Top’s Dusty Hill” and included a logo of the storied Texas band.
The items for sale included Hill’s desk, a dining table, a bed with a 9-foot-tall headboard, and an office whiteboard on which he’d sketched a self-portrait.
“Charleen had never been asked about using Dusty’s name, likeness or reputation for such sale. And, she would not have granted such authority had she been asked,” said a successful June 16 application for a temporary restraining order filed by her lawyer, Barry G. Flynn of Gordon & Rees in Houston.
“This is a tragic story of greed and disrespect,” Flynn wrote. “It is also the story of unscrupulous persons seeking to take advantage of the name and great reputation of a Texas legend, all so they could make exaggerated sums of money at his expense.”
Hill died on July 28, 2021, at age 72. ZZ Top continues to tour with another staggeringly bearded bassist performing in his place.
Kendall and Anderson, the defendants in Charleen Hill’s civil action, did not respond to a June 7 cease-and-desist letter, have not answered court pleadings, and cannot be physically located in the greater Houston area, according to Flynn. “They’re in the wind,” he told The Texas Lawbook. Court records as of Thursday did not identify anyone as their counsel.
“Despite being warned ahead of time that their plans were in direct violation of Texas law, defendants plowed ahead without even showing the common courtesy of responding to those who had notified them of their violations in advance,” Flynn wrote in his motion for a TRO.
According to Culture Map/Houston, Anderson blamed a June press release’s implication that the memorabilia sale was sanctioned by Dusty Hill’s estate on a “clerical error.”