Jerry Falwell Jr. has filed a $5 million lawsuit to cease Liberty University from that includes a hologram of his late father in a deliberate middle to honor the televangelist founding father of the nation’s largest Christian college.
Mr. Falwell, a trustee of the Falwell Family Trust, filed the lawsuit late final month towards the varsity in Lynchburg, Virginia, based by the Rev. Jerry L. Falwell in 1971. The swimsuit claims that the elder Falwell’s “intellectual property” and trademark had been assigned to the household belief when he died in 2007.
The lawsuit, filed July 27 in U.S. District Court in Lynchburg, notes that in November the Rev. Jerry Prevo, the varsity’s then-president, advised a pupil convocation that the proposed Jerry Falwell Center would come with a theater the place a hologram of the late televangelist would seem on stage.
“Mr. Prevo stated, ‘The Jerry Falwell theater, they tell me, that they can make him walk right out on the stage as if he was literally there and speak to you … he’s … a man of great faith, we’re going to use some of his sermons’,” the lawsuit states.
The U.S. Patent & Trademark Office granted the elder Falwell a trademark on his title in 2006, overlaying a variety of makes use of together with “ministry services.” Mr. Falwell’s lawsuit alleges the varsity “has wrongfully exploited” his father’s title and picture in an unauthorized use of the elder Falwell’s mental property.
A Liberty University spokesman mentioned by way of electronic mail the varsity “prefers not to comment on active litigation,” however asserted the title of Jerry Falwell Sr. “is synonymous with Liberty University and for decades has been used across campus.”
“This lawsuit is in response to a specific request by Mr. Falwell, one trustee of the Falwell Family Trust, for the university to pay $7 million dollars for his permission to continue to use the name of Liberty’s founder for the next four years. Included in his demand is the expectation that, in effect, former president Falwell would also have total editorial control of Liberty’s use of the name of Liberty’s founder. The university declined the request; so, this lawsuit was filed by Mr. Falwell,” the spokesman mentioned.
Attorney Broderick C. Dunn of Cook Craig & Francuzenko, PLLC in Fairfax, Virginia, represents the household belief. “We do not have any additional comment at this time,” he mentioned when requested in regards to the Liberty assertion.
The competition facilities on a proposed Jerry Falwell Center for which Liberty is elevating funds and providing “naming rights” for quite a lot of areas within the deliberate facility.
Billed as a tribute to Falwell’s legacy, the constructing is projected to incorporate a 6,878 sq. foot Rising Flame theater that seats 275, an 8,496 Event Space that may maintain 630 individuals and a Vision Vista Rooftop Garden atop the constructing, the place naming alternatives embody hammocks and firepits, in keeping with a college web site selling the venue.
The lawsuit alleges that Liberty is utilizing the founder’s “name, image, and trademark in commercials and other advertising for Liberty; using his handwriting and signature in promotional materials; and even using casts of his footprints for a walking tour of the campus.”
Mr. Falwell mentioned in an announcement: “Liberty announced it is spending approximately $35 million of student tuition money on an ostentatious Disneyesque shrine, including an interactive hologram.”
He mentioned the varsity is doing this “without authorization, and in an undignified manner that seems to attempt to aggrandize and deify my father in a fawning way that he would never have wanted or approved.”
Mr. Falwell resigned as college president in 2020 following a string of non-public scandals and testy interactions with faculty officers.
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