Bit Parts

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Washington decided it lacked personal jurisdiction over the talent agency ICM Partners in a suit alleging the film Red Tails infringed a screenplay that Washington resident John Dudley wrote. Dudley v. Lucasfilm Ltd., 13-CV-5107. Dudley claimed his lawyer had sent ICM Partners a copy of the screenplay. Chief U.S. District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson noted: “Plaintiff could possibly establish that ICM Partners committed an intentional act by providing Plaintiff's screenplay to other defendants without informing them of the nature of the screenplay. However, Plaintiff has not demonstrated that ICM Partners 'expressly aimed' its alleged intentional act at the forum state. The only aimed action alleged by Plaintiff is that Plaintiff's attorney sent a copy of his screenplay to ICM Partners in California. The letter did not come from a Washington address and did not identify Plaintiff as being a resident of Washington. ' Plaintiff's argument that ICM Partners should have known that a film would eventually be distributed in Washington State is insufficient to establish purposeful direction.” Chief Judge Peterson went on to rule that, pending ICM's submission of billed-time logs, she is willing to award discretionary attorney fees under Washington's long-arm statute, RCW 4.28.185(5), for the hours that ICM Partners lawyers reasonably spent on the jurisdictional issue.

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