Disney wins $1.6 million in attorney fees to defend ‘Moana’ trade secret claims

LOS ANGELES (CN) – The Walt Disney Co . was awarded $1.6 million in attorney fees for having to fight bad faith claims that she stole the story of “Moana” from a former animator.

That animator, the judge found, lied about when he first saw the film to avoid the statute of limitations and even forged a confidentiality agreement to support his claims.

In one order posted fridayU.S. District Judge Consuelo Marshall agreed with Disney that Buck Woodall had brought federal and California trade secret misappropriation claims in bad faith.

“Plaintiff falsely claimed she did not see ‘Moana’ until June or July 2017, despite knowing she had seen ‘Moana’ in theaters in 2016 and on DVD as recently as March 2017,” nominee Jimmy Carter wrote. He “continued to litigate his trade secret claims based on this falsehood for more than four years, until the court ultimately granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants.”

Woodall’s bad faith was evidenced by a false alleged confidentiality agreement, the judge said. Woodall claimed the deal was signed by Jenny Marchick, the stepdaughter of his brother’s wife, in 2003, when Woodall said he showed her a presentation package and draft script for a movie he called “Bucky the Surfer Boy.”

At the time, Marchick was working at Mandeville Films, a film production company located at Disney’s studio in Burbank, California. Woodall argued that Marchick had shared his trade secrets with Disney Animation, which then released “Moana” 13 years later.

But when the occasion went to court last year, Woodall admitted that before filing his lawsuit in 2020, he had put Marchick’s name on the confidentiality agreement, which was actually signed by a Hawaii model who had worked for him.

Woodall then returned it on October 22, 2003 and attached a copy of the forged document to his complaint. The misrepresentations showed that “plaintiff’s trade secret claims were objectively false and were made/held in subjective bad faith,” the judge said.

On summary judgment, Marshall also dismissed nearly all of Woodall’s copyright infringement claims, finding them barred. However, she declined to award Disney another $3.9 million in attorney’s fees to fight the claims.

Instead — noting that Woodall seemed almost penniless — the judge awarded Disney just $54,000 in copyright defense costs. The litigation costs were “sufficient to deter the plaintiff and others from raising additional unfounded or unreasonable copyright claims,” ​​she said.

A jury in downtown Los Angeles discussed for just three hours before discovering that Woodall had failed to prove that Disney Animation had access to his “Bucky” materials.

Since the jury found against Woodall on his access claim, there was no need for them to decide whether “Moana” was substantially similar to his “Bucky the Surfer Boy” treatment or script.

In a separate order, Marshall sanctioned Woodall’s attorney, Gustavo Lage, $476,000 for unnecessarily delaying proceedings by failing to timely investigate the authenticity of the confidentiality agreement and for continuing to litigate claims he knew were barred by the statute of limitations. She noted that in his deposition to Disney’s lawyers, Woodall had said he first saw “Moana” more than three years before he sued.

To avoid double recovery, Disney agreed that Woodall will only be on the hook for attorney’s fees that exceed the amount of the sanctions they receive from his attorney.

“We are disappointed by the judge’s orders and strongly disagree with her findings and rulings as a whole,” Lage said in an email. “We believe that these orders, like the trial court’s rulings, are ripe for appellate review.”

Disney’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment by press time.

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