Cheffins v. Stewart
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
825 F.3d 588 (2016)
Simon Cheffins and Gregory Jones (plaintiffs) converted a used school bus into La Contessa, a replica sixteenth-century Spanish galleon with wooden decking and a mast, used at Burning Man festivals to transport attendees and host concerts and weddings. Stored on land later possessed by Michael Stewart (defendant) after the prior life-estate holder abandoned it, La Contessa remained there for about a year before Stewart burned off its wooden structures and had the underlying bus scrapped. The plaintiffs sued under the Visual Artists Rights Act (VARA), and the district court held La Contessa was applied art, not visual art, and dismissed the claim.
Whether an artist may protect a work of visual art from destruction under the Visual Artists Rights Act when the work retains a primarily utilitarian function after artistic embellishment.