The widow of Raul Malo, the late frontman of The Mavericks, is suing to stop the Americana band’s remaining members from performing under that name.
Betty Malo filed a lawsuit on Tuesday (Nov. 11) against drummer Paul Deakin, keyboardist Jerry Dale McFadden and guitarist Eddie Perez, who’ve continued to play with guest singers as “The Mavericks & Friends” since Raul’s death from cancer at the end of 2025. Betty says this is prohibited by the band’s operating agreement, which stated that the group could only be called The Mavericks as long as Raul was involved.
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“Accordingly, neither the Mavericks LLC nor the individual Defendants have the right to use the group name — the Mavericks — unless Raul Malo is a member of the LLC, or Betty Malo, as the personal representative of the estate of Raul Malo and a holder of 35% of the financial rights in the LLC, gives her consent,” reads the lawsuit, obtained by Billboard.
Deakin, McFadden and Perez have said the goal of The Mavericks & Friends project is “honoring their beloved Raul Malo while building upon the legacy he helped create.” Legally speaking, their attorneys claim this is allowed because they amended the operating agreement after Raul’s death to remove the restrictive language.
Betty, however, argues in her lawsuit that the band’s amendment is “invalid.” She says, “The attempt to rewrite the operating Agreement without any authority to do so in their role as terminated members, and in breach of those fiduciary duties to Plaintiff, vitiates the Plaintiff’s rights and jeopardizes her financial interests.”
Now, Betty is asking a judge to declare that the remaining band members have no right to use the Mavericks name. She also wants a court order requiring them to provide royalty statements and return all unreleased materials or photographs that use Raul’s name, image, likeness or voice.
Betty has a separate ongoing legal case challenging the remaining members’ re-registration of a trademark for recordings, live performances and merch under “The Mavericks.” The band previously held various iterations of this trademark since 1992.
Reps for the surviving band members did not immediately return requests for comment on the lawsuit on Friday (Nov. 13).
The Mavericks were formed in 1989 and signed to MCA two years later. They won a Grammy in 1996 for “Here Comes the Rain,” which hit No. 22 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart. The band took a hiatus in the 2000s but reunited in 2012, hitting No. 39 on the Billboard 200 with the album In Time. Raul revealed in 2024 that he’d been diagnosed with colon cancer, which later spread to his brain.
