Variety: SLM Suit Dismissed

Variety is reporting that a lawsuit filed from the last men standing in the midst of wreckage of Stan Lee's ill-fated Stan Lee Media set-up against the company's namesake over Lee's ownership stake in various Marvel characters has been dismissed by a federal judge. The suit was brought by Jose Abadin and Christopher Belland and the ruling was issued by US District Court Judge Paul A. Crotty.

The article cites two primary reasons for the dismissal. First that the filers did not acquire their shares in the company until after Lee transferred his interest in the company to Marvel; second that securities claims against Lee had already been settled with the two men being part of that settlement. This provided something of an anti-climax as the decision didn't seem to directly engage what the suit and its backers suggested was its primary logic -- that in settling with Lee in order to get its movie house in order Marvel had acknowledged Lee's interest in several characters, but that in putting together his media company Lee had assigned all rights in advance of any settlement he could make with Marvel. To such issues, Variety notes that the copyright claims were rejected in part due to statute of limitations in California law that limited lifetime pacts to seven years, and because Lee has been using his own characters since 1999 without legal objection until relatively recently.

It's questionable whether anything about Crotty's decision will pacify persons that feel the assignation argument remains worth repeating, at least as a rhetorical club, but it would also seem that with every decision, in what the judge acknowledged was a sprawling effort across several courts, potential legal teeth that could be provided that stance are being removed.
 
posted 9:00 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives