Maxine Isis Stowe says she is ready to speak on Bunny Wailer’s estate following a Supreme Court ruling on June 28, 2024, which gave The Bunny Wailer Estate to his 13 children as beneficiaries. Stowe, who the court ruled as a credit and not a beneficiary in a statement sent to World Music Views, says that she is still a key figure in Bunny Wailer’s intellectual property rights management.
“Being the first of the three Wailers to have done a will,” Stowe notes, “it intersects with a lot of ongoing contestation with The Wailers’ IP rights as a group and also sets a critical standard for how Rastafari artists and the cultural community should share benefits for the commercial products and services that have evolved.”
The Supreme Court’s ruling, she describes, was primarily about verifying the Trust/Will and moving forward with the delayed probate process. “The Trust/Will was submitted to the Supreme Court Probate division by named co-Executor, elder brother Carlton Livingston, in June 2021, three months after Bunny Wailer’s death. Upon receiving the Oath of Executor application, it was withheld by one of Bunny’s children for four months, leading to a lawsuit filed to remove Carlton Livingston as co-Executor in October 2021.”
This lawsuit continued until Carlton Livingston’s passing in March 2023, after which the suit was discontinued, allowing the probate process to begin in earnest.
As a “Judgement Creditor,” Stowe, a former A&R at Columbia Records says she will not be pursuing any further legal action, in light of her not being designated a beneficiary of the will. She however remains committed to ensuring that Bunny Wailer’s wishes are honored and that his intellectual property rights are protected and valued.
She suggests that whats needed now to properly exploit Bunny Wailer’s assets are professional expertise in navigating the complexities of music estates. “For estates of artists, the work required of intellectual property and entertainment lawyers far outweighs the expertise needed by the probate and estate lawyers.”
When WMV contacted Abijah Livingston, the lead authorized representative for Bunny Wailer’s estate for a response to the claims made by Stowe he said, “with all due respect Maxine Stowe has wasted enough of the estate’s time.”
