Snoop Dogg is moving to dismiss a $107 million lawsuit against him and Death Row Records. Lydia Harris, the ex-wife of Death Row co-founder Michael ‘Harry-O’ Harris, also a former label executive, claims Snoop, Suge Knight, Interscope Records, Time Warner, and Universal Music Group failed to pay her a judgment from a 2005 court order.
Harris alleges she invested $1.5 million to launch Death Row in 1989 but wasn’t paid when the label started profiting. She claims all parties in the lawsuit conspired to keep her from her rightful earnings.
However, Snoop filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming the accusations exceeded the statute of limitations. Snoop and his legal team have accused Harris of being a “bad faith litigant” who “continued a pattern of harassment in California for years and has now shifted her harassment to a new forum in Texas.”
Harris is seeking punitive damages, asset recovery, and a full accounting of the label’s finances, having originally sued Death Row in 2002.
A few years ago, Snoop became the new owner of Death Row, releasing his last two albums, Bacc on Death Row and Missionary, through the label. It was a full circle moment for Snoop, who dropped his first two albums, Doggystyle and Tha Dogfather, on Death Row.
“I am thrilled and appreciative of the opportunity to acquire the iconic and culturally significant Death Row Records brand, which has immense untapped future value,” he said after acquiring the iconic label. “It feels good to have ownership of the label I was part of at the beginning of my career and as one of the founding members. This is an extremely meaningful moment for me.”
His next project, Altar Call, is a gospel album that will be released on April 27th as a tribute to his late mother.
Harris claimed former CEO Suge Knight forced her out of the business after her then-incarcerated ex-husband contributed $1.5 million to support Death Row Records when it was first founded. In 2002, Harris sued Knight and Death Row Records, and in 2005, she was granted a default judgment of $107 million.
However, according to the company assigned to collect the debt, she had concealed a 1996 bankruptcy and “forfeited her chances” of receiving the money back. In 2019, the judgment was reinstated after her attorneys successfully argued that her financial history had been adequately disclosed, and the sum was to be paid to her in 2019.
Complicating the matter further is that Knight declared bankruptcy in 2006 due to the civil suit against him in which Harris was said to have been cheated out of a 50 percent stake in the record label. Harris reportedly appears to have acknowledged receiving a $1 million “good-faith payment” from Knight on a podcast in April 2025.
Team Snoop believes that the 2008 bankruptcy settlement both settled Harris’ claims and stopped her from pursuing further litigation when Knight filed for bankruptcy. However, the former head honcho is no longer involved or able to pay restitution, so they are arguing they are under no obligation to settle the financial complaint. They also argue that too much time has passed.
“Over 20 years have elapsed between the March 9, 2005, entry of judgment and the March 18, 202,5 filing of Plaintiff’s Complaint, a time period which is considerably outside the one-year statute of limitations,” the motion for dismissal reads.
The motion also claims Harris is “a bad faith litigant” who “continued a pattern of harassment in California for years and has now shifted her harassment to a new forum in Texas.”
