Fuerza Regida Legal Battle: Judge Won’t Decide Crucial Question in Record Label Lawsuit
Categoria: Musica
A judge says it's too soon to rule on whether California's "seven-year rule" means the band should be set free from its record deal with Rancho Humilde.
Por Billboard | 10/07/2026
The legal battle between Fuerza Regida and its label Rancho Humilde is heating up, with a federal judge ruling he cannot immediately decide one of the core questions of the case. In a decision Thursday (July 9), Judge Hernán D. Vera refused to dismiss Fuerza’s central claim against Rancho: That the música mexicana band should be freed from its 2018 record deal under California’s seven-year rule , which prohibits “exclusive services contracts” that run any longer than that. Related Fuerza Regida’s JOP & Label Boss Jimmy Humilde Go Public With Legal Feud in Instagram Posts DJ Quik Says His Son 'Made a Mistake' Following Murder Conviction, Pleads With Fans to Stop Asking About It Naoshi Fujikura of Universal Music Japan on Japan's Unique Superfan Culture & Global Ambitions: Billboard Global Power Players Interview Rancho had argued that Fuerza willingly signed new record deals in 2021 and 2022, meaning they had restarted the seven-year clock. But in Thursday’s ruling, obtained and first reported by Billboard , Judge Vera said it was simply too early in the case to rule on that question. “Although the court has the contracts and the timeline of when they were entered into, the court does not now have all of the facts regarding the circumstances of their negotiation in order to determine whether there was an intent to avoid the application of [the seven-year rule],” the judge wrote. Rancho has been sparring in court for months with Fuerza, one of its top acts, which just scored a No. 2 album on the Billboard 200 with 111XPANTIA . Rancho sued first, claiming the band breached its record deal by unilaterally doing features for other artists and excluding it from lucrative deals with Apple Music and Live Nation. Fuerza then sued right back, seeking to terminate its record contract and accusing the label of trying to “sabotage” its success. Fuerza Regida frontman Jesús Ortiz Paz (JOP) and Rancho Humilde CEO Jimmy Humilde took the dispute public last week , with each airing their grievances against the other in fiery Instagram posts. Because Fuerza’s ongoing obligations to Rancho are a central question of the case, the debate over the seven-year rule (formally California Labor Code Section 2855) has become a major element of the litigation . In court filings, the band has called it its “most powerful” argument against the label. Related ‘Involuntary Servitude’: Fuerza Regida Blasts Label Rancho Humilde in Latest Court Filing In seeking to dismiss that claim, Rancho argued that Section 2855 had not been designed to turn successive deals into a “single unified transaction.” It said Fuerza had voluntarily entered into the later contracts — noting that they came with a $1.8 million payment — and that the relationship had thus not yet crossed the seven-year threshold. Fuerza argued back that it had still been locked into its Rancho deal when it signed the renewal, meaning it had not been a true free-market deal