Death At A Funeral Leads To Lawsuit In A Courtroom

from the who-do-you-believe dept

It's pretty common for people who think that "ideas" can be owned to get upset when someone else makes a movie or a book that has a similar idea to one they had. These often lead to lawsuits that quickly go nowhere. It's actually quite rare to find a lawsuit over the idea of a book or movie that has legs, and it usually has to involve some detailed evidence. For example the famous Buchwald v. Paramount case involved a situation where Paramount had specifically optioned a very similar story (to what became Coming to America) from Buchwald, involving the same actor (Eddie Murphy) and director (John Landis) who eventually made the movie. That case showed direct involvement of many of the parties. Most of these cases are more along the lines of "hey, I had that idea and I sent it to movie studio X, so they must have seen it and copied it." Those don't get very far.

However, THREsq has the details on a lawsuit from a woman who does a half decent job of suggesting her lawsuit might be slightly more like Buchwald's than others -- though there are some really wacky aspects to this lawsuit, and I doubt that she'll win. This case involves Pamella Lawrence, who apparently wrote a book about an embarrassing thing (where her clothes were stripped off) that happened to her at a funeral in Jamaica which was caught on film. Her book had the catchy name "Caught on Video ... The Most Embarassing Moment de Funeral, July 11, 1994, Jamaican Volume 1." Two movies, with the much catchier name "Death at a Funeral" have come out in the last few years (one in the UK, and another remake in the US -- neither of which did all that well). Lawrence claims both were based on her book and video. At times, her lawsuit seems to go off the deep end. As THREsq describes:

The woman, Pamella Lawrence, is representing herself in court and has filed a lawsuit stuffed with outrageous claims, including racism, a plot to eradicate the female population of urban cities and allegations of inside jokes within the movie that were specifically intended to humiliate her.

Yes, apparently, because the first thing you want to do when infringing on someone's copyright is write into the script jokes intended to humiliate the person. Most of those claims seem like absolutely ridiculous stretches. However, as THREsq notes, this shouldn't automatically be relegated into the "nutty pro se" lawsuit bin:

Yes, many of the claims stretch reason, but Lawrence has also gone to extreme lengths to craft a 54-page complaint that almost looks and feels as if it was drawn up by a $500-an-hour attorney. She cites applicable laws and case citations (although none are required in complaints), copyright registrations, numerous exhibits and perhaps most impressively a frame work intended to bypass the legal pitfalls that typically trip up those asserting idea theft in Hollywood.

It still seems like a longshot, but she does describe meeting with studio execs, and even getting involved in a legal dispute previously that ended in a settlement. That all makes for much more interesting reading than the typical such lawsuit, but it still seems pretty thin on actual evidence of anything in the complaint. But, there's also so much pure ridiculousness in the lawsuit that whatever credibility is built up in the other parts may get lost in the deep paranoia. Again, from THREsq's summary:

Lawrence claims the defendants intended to destroy the "female competition" from the "inner city" in relevant markets by distributing the film, that Hollywood has a consistent pattern of discriminating against women as evidenced by the fact it took 82 years for a woman to win best director at the Oscars, and that this case is an example of why there are so few minorities at Sony Pictures

Yeah, that's not quite how you go about making yourself a credible plaintiff. On top of that, the "similarities" seem incredibly weak as well. Just because there are some generic similarities in characters or parts of a story, it doesn't mean that infringement or breach of any contract occurred. Still, if you want some entertaining reading in the form of a lawsuit filing, here you go:

Filed Under: copying, death at a funeral, movies