## Facts

- Robert Wachs and X Management, Inc. provided personal management services to entertainers.
- They entered a written agreement to manage Arsenio Hall for 15% of Hall’s entertainment-industry earnings during the contract term.
- The agreement stated Hall did not retain Wachs as an employment or talent agent and that Wachs was not obligated or expected to procure employment.
- Hall filed an administrative petition with the Labor Commissioner alleging Wachs procured or attempted to procure entertainment employment without a talent-agency license and sought return of monies paid.
- While the administrative matter was pending, Wachs and X Management filed a civil action against state officials challenging the constitutionality of the Talent Agencies Act, including (1) the exemption for persons who procure only recording contracts and (2) the statute’s alleged vagueness as to what conduct requires licensure.
- The trial court granted summary judgment for the state officials, and Wachs and X Management appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether exempting persons who procure only recording contracts from talent-agency licensure violates equal protection or due process under rational-basis review.
2. Whether the Talent Agencies Act is unconstitutionally vague because it allegedly fails to provide ascertainable standards for which activities require a talent-agency license.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeal affirmed summary judgment for the state officials.
- The recording-contract exemption survived rational-basis review and did not violate equal protection or due process.
- The Act was not void for vagueness because its definitions and core prohibition provide reasonable notice and enforceable standards.

## Legal Principles

- Economic and occupational regulation is presumed constitutional and is reviewed under rational-basis scrutiny unless a suspect classification or fundamental right is implicated.
- A statutory classification is valid if any reasonably conceivable set of facts could provide a rational basis; the Legislature need not regulate all related conduct in the same way.
- A law is not unconstitutionally vague if it gives reasonable notice of the regulated conduct and provides standards sufficient to limit arbitrary enforcement; borderline applications do not, by themselves, invalidate the statute.
- Under the Talent Agencies Act, persons who procure, offer, promise, or attempt to procure employment for artists in covered entertainment fields must be licensed, while persons who procure only recording contracts fall within a statutory exemption.

## Conclusion

The court upheld California’s Talent Agencies Act against facial and as-applied constitutional attacks, concluding that the Legislature had a rational basis for exempting those who procure only recording contracts and that the Act’s licensing trigger—procurement of covered entertainment employment—was stated with sufficient clarity to defeat a vagueness challenge.


Wachs v. Curry, 13 Cal. App. 4th 616, 16 Cal. Rptr. 2d 496 (Ct. App. 1993)