Kelli L. Sager

Successful movies have a way of bringing on copyright violation claims from plaintiffs who believe they anticipated plots, scenes or characters in Hollywood films. Sager defends studios, producers and writers when such attacks occur.

“Sometimes even unsuccessful films get sued,” said Sager, who has more than 30 years of experience as a media and entertainment lawyer. “I hadn’t heard of ‘The Lazarus Effect’ before a suit against it was filed, but we went to work and got it dismissed.”

The 2015 science fiction horror mystery about researchers who can bring the dead to life violated Christopher Fillmore’s 2006 copyrighted literary work titled “Laza[u]ri Taxa”, according to Fillmore, a writer from Indiana.

Lazarus is a biblical figure raised from the dead by Jesus, but even though his name appears in both titles, the setting, plot and sequence of events within the two works are not similar, U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte Jr. of Los Angeles ruled in July, agreeing with Sager’s arguments and dismissing Fillmore’s case last year. Fillmore v. Blumhouse Productions LLC, 16-CV04348 (C.D. Cal., filed June 17, 2016).

More recently, Sager fended off similar claims by a woman who asserted that the Oscar-winning “Get Out” violated her copyrighted self-help dating book. Plaintiff Tia Griffin wrote in her complaint that there were similarities between a scene in her book and one in the movie in which an interracial couple driving to meet the family of one of them strikes a deer.

Again, a judge was unpersuaded. U.S. District Judge Jesus G. Bernal of Los Angeles dismissed the complaint in January. Griffin v. Blumhouse Productions LLC, 17-CV01153 (C.D. Cal., filed July 13, 2017).

Both plaintiffs represented themselves. “We are seeing a significant increase in pro per copyright cases,” Sager said. A problem for defense lawyers is that pro per plaintiffs can slow the litigation down, because courts tend to cut them some slack and often allow re-pleadings and other time-consuming maneuvers.

“In the ‘Get Out’ case, Ms. Griffin filed first in state court, which is not the right venue for copyright,” Sager said. “She probably had some lawyer who helped her when she refiled in federal court, I’m guessing, because there were more case cites in that complaint.”

Her most recent challenge came in February when David Zindel filed a plagiarism suit against “The Shape of Water,” alleging it was based on his father’s 1969 play “Let Me Hear You Whisper,” about a captive dolphin’s relationship with a cleaning woman. Zindel v. Fox Searchlight Pictures Inc., 18-CV01435 (C.D. Cal., filed Feb. 21, 2018).

“There is a dolphin, but it’s no love story,” Sager said.

— John Roemer