Stone sued his former managers in 2010, accusing them of cheating him out of years' worth of royalty payments for the songs he had written. He testified that he had not been paid any royalties between 1989 and 2009. A jury in Los Angeles awarded him $5 million in damages in January 2015, but in December the award was overturned because, the appellate court ruled, the trial judge had not told the jury to take into account the fact Stone had assigned his royalties to a production company in exchange for a 50% ownership stake. In May 2016, Stone's attorneys appealed that decision.