Disney can’t throw ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ suit

A California judge has denied Disney summary judgment in a copyright infringement case brought by former employees claiming that the media giant stole their “Pirates of the Caribbean” script.

The US District for the Central District of California handed down the order dismissing the judgment on Thursday, December 16, saying that questions still remained pertaining to the “substantial similarity” of the script and the movie series.

Scriptwriters Lee Alfred II and Ezequiel Martinez claimed that they had submitted a screenplay for the “Pirates of the Caribbean” during their stint working with Disney on a separate project, “Red Hood” in 1999.

The original complaint claims that Disney later repurposed the unpublished screenplay as the basis for the original “ Pirates of the Caribbean” film, and that “similarities have continued throughout the entire franchise”.

Disney was originally granted a motion to dismiss the suit in May 2019, with the court finding that the works were not substantially similar as a matter of law.

But on appeal in July 2020, the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a memorandum disposition finding that Alfred and Martinez’s screenplay shared “sufficient similarities” with the film to survive a motion to dismiss “at this stage of the litigation”.

Upon remand, Alfred and Martinez filed a first amended complaint on November 30, 2020, which asserts a single cause of action for infringement regarding the franchise. Disney then moved for a summary judgment on the issue of “substantial similarity”.

Now, the California court has refused Disney’s summary judgment bid on the issue, holding that the case should be tried before a jury.

Robins Kaplan partner Patrick Arenz and Ronald Schutz serve as lead counsel for the Alfred and Martinzez, alongside co-counsel Steven Lowe and Aleksandra Hilvert of Lowe & Associates.

Arenz told WIPR: “This is a great order. We now look forward to presenting our case to a jury that Lee Alfred II and Ezequiel Martinez created the original expression that drove the success of ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’, and that Disney’s copying of it was willful.”

Schutz added: “We hope that this order reflects a changing tide in Hollywood and when studios copy the creative genius of others they will be held accountable.”

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