Ex-Manager Sues 98 Degrees

October 12 -- 98 Degrees is in hot water with a management company that claims it helped propel the quartet to stardom but was cast aside — and cut out of the financial rewards — once the group found fame.

In a lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, Top 40 Entertainment asserts that the boy band, whose fourth full-length, Revelation, entered the charts last week at No. 2, was "plucked from obscurity" by the company.

Paris D'Jon, principal officer of Top 40, met the foursome backstage at a Boyz II Men show in October 1995, when it was still an unsigned act. The group signed with D'Jon a month later, according to the suit. He put the quartet on the road with another one of his clients, R&B star Montell Jordan.

According to the suit, D'Jon and Top 40 financed the band's continued development, arranging TV appearances and promotional tours, and helped them secure record label deals with Motown and Universal.

The band terminated its agreement with D'Jon — who also groomed Jessica Simpson for stardom — in December 1999, even though the agreement between Top 40 and 98 Degrees was binding until October 2001, according to the suit.

The group plans to file a counterclaim. "The band's view is that they had more than ample grounds to terminate Mr. D'Jon and Top 40 as their manager," 98 Degrees' lawyer, John J. Rosenberg, told The Associated Press.