On Friday Warner Bros. lawyers filed a brief before the 9th Court of Appeals asking that the Court reverse portions of earlier judgments that gave rights to the first issue featuring Superman (Action Comics #1) to heirs of its creators Jerome Siegel and Joseph Schuster.  If the Appeals Court decides not to rule on the case, Warner Bros. wants the case remanded to a district court for a trial, which could settle the case once and for all (or, given the amount of money involved, set off another round of appeals).

 

Warner Bros. is looking to reverse a previous court’s decision that Action Comics #1 was not produced as “work for hire” for DC and hence the rights should revert to the heirs.  This decision that awarded the Siegel heirs a share of the Superman rights (see “Siegel Heirs Wins Superman Case”), basically sunders the Superman universe, giving the heirs the rights to the Superman costume, his alter ego Clark Kent, and his origin story, while DC retained control of all the elements of the Superman universe added after Action Comics #1.

 

The Warners’ brief goes over all the studio’s previous arguments, essentially stating that the studio and the Siegel heirs had an oral agreement to proceed in 2001, when just before the deal was finalized attorney Marc Toberoff, who specializes in intellectual property cases, approached the heirs and basically offered them the prospect of a much bigger payday that could be gained through litigation.  The brief also marshals the studio’s evidence that backs Warner’s contention that the Action Comics #1 material was actually “work for hire.”

 

More than 3 months ago Toberoff filed his brief that contends that the Siegel and Schuster heirs should receive all the Superman rights because the previous court decision erred in designating all the post Action Comics #1 Superman work done by Siegel and Schuster as “work for hire.”

 

There is a huge amount money riding on this case, which has become a real bare-knuckled legal donnybrook.  Warner Bros. has sued Toberoff (see “Studio Sues Superman Mouthpiece”) with much of the material in the case coming from documents that Toberoff claims were stolen from his office (see “DC, Warners Can Use Stolen Docs”).  The harassment wasn’t just limited to the heirs’ legal team—it appears that studios lawyers harassed Siegel’s 93-year-old widow Joanne (see “DC, Warners Shamed”).