Sup. Ct. Hears <i>Raging Bull</i> Laches Dispute

The issue before the justices is whether the doctrine of laches can be a defense to a copyright claim when the claim is filed within the Copyright Act's three-year statute of limitations. Laches is a “gap filler,” and Congress in the U.S. Copyright Act filled the gap with a clear, bright-line rule: the three-year statute of limitations, Stephanos Bibas of the University of Pennsylvania School of Law argued for Paula Petrella.

Petrella sued MGM for copyright infringement in 2009 ' 18 years after she had renewed her father's copyright in the screenplay that she contends became the basis for Raging Bull . She sought to recover damages for the three-year period from 2006 to 2009. Her father, Frank Petrella, who had collaborated with LaMotta on screenplays and a book, died in 1981 and his rights in the works reverted to his daughter. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld a grant of summary judgment to MGM on the studio's defense of laches after finding that the delay in filing was unreasonable and had prejudiced MGM in terms of its access to witnesses and evidence and its business expectations. Petrella v. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc., 695 F.3d 946 (9th Cir. 2012).