Clint Eastwood awarded 6m damages in CBD dispute

Clint Eastwood has won a $6.1 million lawsuit against a CBD seller.

The 91-year-old director had taken legal action against Mediatonas UAB for using his name and likeness to promote their products without his permission, and now a judge in California has entered a default judgement against the Lithuanian company after they failed to respond to a summons in March.

Clint and Garrapata, the company which owns the rights to his likeness, were awarded $6million in damages and $95,000 to cover legal fees, and also obtained a permanent injunction against the future use of the ‘Million Dollar Baby’ director’s name or image by the company.

The ‘Dirty Harry’ actor had filed two lawsuits last year from a number of CBD companies, who he accused of falsely claiming he had endorsed their products.

Documents filed in July 2020 stated: “In truth, Mr Eastwood has no connection of any kind whatsoever to any CBD products and never gave such an interview.

“Mr Eastwood seeks to hold accountable the persons and entities that wrongfully crafted this scheme, spread false and malicious statements of facts about him, and illegally profited off of his name and likeness.”

A second lawsuit targeted a number of companies and individuals to use programming code to insert his name in hidden tags in order to send online searches to their webpages.

The suit stated: “By using Mr Eastwood’s name in hidden metatags, defendants have figuratively posted a sign with Mr Eastwood’s trademark in front of their online store to attract customers and caused the consuming public to believe that Mr Eastwood is associated with and/or endorsed… defendants’ CBD products, when no such association actually exists…

“Like many of his most famous characters, Mr Eastwood is not afraid to confront wrongdoing and hold accountable those that try to illegally profit off his name or likeness.”

And the movie legend’s legal representatives warned fans to be “cautious” about celebrity endorsements.

His attorney, Nolan Heimann, previously said: “My client is not one to sit idly by as the defendants use his good name to dupe customers into purchasing products with which he has no affiliation.

“While the purpose of these lawsuits is to halt and remedy ongoing defamation and misappropriation violations, they should also serve as a reminder to customers to be cautious when they see a too-good-to-be-true celebrity endorsement.”