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Litigation Over Skater Girl Film Transferred to CA
When Atlanta filmmaker-turned-plaintiff Raymond Pirtle Jr. filed a copyright infringement suit against California-based Netflix Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, he opted to represent himself. But that pitted him against seasoned attorneys, representing a corporate giant in a case that has both sides claiming early incremental victories. Pirtle v. Netflix Inc., 1:2021cv02096.
Pirtle's complaint alleged the Netflix film Skater Girl infringed on his independent film, Sk8r Grrl. But his case has been tossed out of the Peach State, thanks to a technicality his legal adversaries said they anticipated as part of an ongoing trend. "It's a classic case of civil procedure," said Jonathan Goins, Atlanta partner and co-chair of Lewis Brisbois' intellectual property and technology group. "It follows a trend of where a lot of cases are going when it comes to suing a corporate entity. You have to sue an entity either where they're incorporated or where they have a principal place of business. That speaks to general personal jurisdiction."
Goins, who teamed with associate Racquel McGhee to defend Netflix, said Pirtle's lawsuit lacked both general and specific personal jurisdiction. "In this case in particular," Goins said, "the film was not produced or developed in Georgia. So there's an uphill battle, procedurally to permit the case to have proceeded."
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