A federal jury awarded Hueston Hennigan client Disney a complete defense verdict in a high-profile suit brought by an animator who alleged Disney infringed his copyrights to develop the blockbuster film, “Moana.”
At the end of a closely followed 10-day trial in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Consuelo B. Marshall, jurors deliberated less than three hours before siding with Disney.
The plaintiff, Buck Woodall, alleged he had passed his materials to a family member who worked on a Disney lot, but the jury decided that the creators of “Moana,” which earned nearly $700 million at the global box office, never had access to the plaintiff’s outlines and script for “Bucky the Surfer Boy.”
During his closing argument, which was widely quoted in the press, Disney’s lead counsel Moez Kaba said thousands of pages of development documents show every step of the movie’s creation, which was inspired by the paintings of Paul Gaugin and the writings of Herman Melville.
“You can see every single fingerprint,” Kaba said. “You can see the entire genetic makeup of ‘Moana.’”
“You know what you will not find? Any reference to Buck Woodall…any reference to ‘Bucky.’”
In addition to Kaba, the team includes Robert Klieger, Sourabh Mishra and Deeksha Kohli.
The verdict is being widely reported by outlets including the Associated Press, Reuters, Law360, Daily Journal, Bloomberg, Entertainment Weekly, The Independent and Courthouse News.