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'Purchaser' Didn't Include Disney Subsidiaries
The California Court of Appeal, Second District, decided that the term 'Purchaser' in an agreement for 'Walt Disney Productions' to purchase rights in the novel 'Who Censored Roger Rabbit?' and its characters didn't apply to Disney's subsidiaries. Wolf v. Walt Disney Pictures and Television, BC251199.
Book author Gary Wolf sued Disney, claiming underpayment of royalties from merchandising uses of characters from the movie 'Who Framed Roger Rabbit,' which was based on Wolf's novel. A jury determined in part that Disney owed Wolf monies earned from merchandising sales by Disney subsidiaries.
But the Court of Appeal found that the trial court erred in allowing the jury to interpret the meaning of 'purchaser.' 'Absent a conflict in the evidence, the interpretation of the contract remains a matter of law,' the court noted. 'Here, the meaning of the term 'Purchaser' was not dependent on the credibility of conflicting extrinsic evidence.'
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