California Court of Appeal

In plaintiffs' suit against Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. (Warner), claiming that Warner's practice of allocating the same share of the licensing fee to every movie in a package regardless of its value to the licensee deprived plaintiff of a fair allocation of the licensing fees to which plaintiff was entitled as a profit participant, judgment of the trial court is affirmed where: 1) the record supports the jury's determination that Warner's straight-lining method of allocating licensing fees to profit participants breached the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing; and 2) Warner failed to meet its burden at trial to show what portion, if any, of plaintiff's damages may have been barred by the 1996 settlement agreement or by the August 1, 1999 accrual of the four-year statute of limitations, and as such, entitling plaintiff to recover all of his proved damages.

Appellate Information

• Decided 05/25/2010
• Published 05/25/2010

Judges

• KLEIN, P.J.

Court

• California Court of Appeal

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Greenberg Traurig, John M. Gatti, John J. Lucas; Stroock & Stroock & Lavan, John M. Gatti, John J. Lucas; Greines, Martin, Stein & Richland, Robert A. Olson and Edward L. Xanders, for Plaintiffs and Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Horvitz & Levy, John A. Taylor, Jr., Frederic D. Cohen, Jason R. Litt; Weissman Wolff Bergman Coleman Grodin & Evall, Michael Bergman, Steven Glaser and Julie B. Ephraim, for Defendant and Appellant.