Where there's smoke, there's bound to be fire, so the saying goes ... and where there's money, there's bound to be lawsuits, even between generally congenial country stars.

Unfortunately, lawsuits aren't uncommon in the country music industry. Sometimes, it's artists suing their record labels, like Travis Tritt did to Category 5 Records, Kenny Rogers did to Capitol Records and Tim McGraw and LeAnn Rimes did to Curb Records. And, unfortunately, sometimes it's personal -- as when Porter Wagoner famously sued Dolly Parton, after she left his variety show to pursue her own solo career.

Regardless of the reasons, as long as country music has been around, lawsuits between those invested in the genre have occurred. Click through the photo gallery below to learn more about some of the nastiest country music lawsuits of all time:

This story was originally written by Gayle Thompson, and revised by Angela Stefano.

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