Dodgeball: A true underdog lawsuit

So my brother, Guy, is in The New York Times today. He's the lead counsel in a pretty fascinating plagiarism case, which has also been covered by The Daily News, the New York Law Journal and the Hollywood Reporter. Plus Film Stew and Gothamist (which had the best headline: "WhenArt Imitates Life & Maybe Your Own Script About a Ragtag Team of Losers Playing Dodgeball") It's really a great story ...

Dodgeball (my brother's clients on the left)

Until now, Guy's law career has focused mainly on defending companies against extravagantly frivolous lawsuits. But, in a surprise plot twist, he's now representing 2 young writers who penned a goofy screenplay called "Dodgeball: The Movie," which told the story of a ragtag bunch of misfits who overcome all odds to win a national dodgeball competition, assisted by a slimy green drink, a wheelchair bound coach who dies by falling on his head (but reappears as a ghost), a fat team member named Gordo who saves the day by getting almost everyone out, and a lesbian dodgeball player named Kate.

They filed their script with the Writer's Guild, submitted it to William Morris, and got no love or interest.

Three years later, 20th Century Fox released a goofy movie called Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story, which told the story of a ragtag bunch of misfits who overcome all odds to win an international dodgeball competition, assisted by a wheelchair bound coach who dies when something falls on his head  (but reappears as a ghost), a fat team member named Gordon who saves the day by getting almost everyone out, and a bisexual love interest named Kate. An earlier draft also had the slimy green drink.

The movie, starring Ben Stiller and Vince Vaughn, made $167M. The credited writer, Rawson Thurber, who worked for and later was represented by William Morris, had his career made. The writers of the original script, as the Jill Sobule song goes, "still live in Brooklyn."

It's a TRUE underdog story!

I suspect things like this happen all the time in Hollywood, but it's almost impossible to prove. So for the last year, my brother's been combing through scripts, watching every sports movie ever made, and putting together a very compelling case that similarities like these (and many, many others) cannot be mere coincidence.  

20th Century Fox, on their part, has fought extremely hard, litigated aggressively, and asked the court to throw out the case in "summary judgment." Last week, the court said "No way." Actually, the court said "Coincidence - even an eerie coincidence - cannot explain away this evidence as a matter of law in this case."

It's almost unheard of for a plagiarism case to make it this far. Hence, the news coverage.

Go, Guy, Go!