Court lets Crichton estate pursue The Pitt lawsuit

A California appeals court has allowed Michael Crichton’s estate to pursue its lawsuit against Warner Bros. Television, finding that similarities between the medical dramas The Pitt and ER are sufficient for the claims to proceed at this stage. The court did not decide whether The Pitt unlawfully copied ER. It also ordered the dismissal of claims against three individual producers: Noah Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill. In a unanimous opinion, a three-judge panel of the California Second District Court of Appeal affirmed the denial of Warner Bros. Television’s anti-SLAPP motion, which sought to end the case. The judges said they compared the pilot scripts and found similarities in plot, themes, dialogue, mood, setting, pace, characters and sequence of events. They also cited the emergency-room setting, rapid overlapping medical crises, jargon, graphic injuries and a young, inexperienced doctor. The panel said those similarities were enough to establish a prima facie case, the threshold for allowing the estate’s claims against the studio to continue. The ruling leaves the central question of whether The Pitt is an unauthorized derivative work of ER unresolved. Further...