Film flam

3 October 2013 By Reynolds Holding

A screenwriter’s daughter waited 18 years to sue owners of the movie “Raging Bull” over copyright. Timing can be everything in a lawsuit, as investors and watchdogs have learned. But dawdling deprives targets of legal certainty. The justices should make this a quick fight.

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The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 1 agreed to hear a dispute over a copyright lawsuit filed against the creators of the movie “Raging Bull” 18 years after the legal claim first accrued.
Paula Petrella, the daughter of deceased screenwriter Frank Petrella, says Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and related entities infringed the copyright covering her father’s 1963 screenplay, on which the 1980 boxing movie was allegedly based. Petrella learned of her rights in 1991 but did not sue until 2009.
Petrella technically filed her complaint before the statute of limitations expired, because the three-year deadline resets after each instance of alleged infringement. Two lower courts ruled, however, that Petrella’s failure to sue earlier was unreasonable and unfairly prejudiced the defendants. Petrella’s appeal is now before the Supreme Court.

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