A writer and a talent agency have tentatively settled the penman’s lawsuit in which he said an idea he pitched for a never-aired series inspired by the life of Eric Holder, the nation’s first black attorney general, was dealt by the agency to a better-known client without compensating the plaintiff.
Attorneys for “The Newsroom” writer John Musero filed court papers Monday with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Brock Hammond informing him of a “conditional” resolution in the case against Creative Artists Agency with the expectation a request for dismissal will be filed by May 8.
No terms were divulged. Trial was scheduled to begin Monday.
Musero sued CAA in March 2019 along with agents Andrew Miller and Leah Yerushalaim, who he says agreed to represent him in 2014. Musero alleges the pair failed to market his script for “Main Justice” and later redeveloped it with Jerry Bruckheimer and writer client Sascha Penn without his knowledge and permission and sold it to CBS.
Musero said in a sworn statement that he sent the agents a 63-page script for a pilot episode in November 2015.
“That script opened with a scene involving a car crash and then cut to a scene in which two main characters analogize fouls in sports to the legal process during a basketball game,” Musero said. “The pilot ends with a shocking assassination attempt on the attorney general on the streets of Washington D.C. at night.”
“The crux of this case is that of plaintiff’s agents acting in a way that was antithetical to plaintiff’s interests,” former Musero attorney Stephen Doniger wrote in his court papers. “Despite defendants’ efforts to color it so, the television show and its production is not the issue and never has been.”
In their court papers, CAA lawyers maintained that the case was indeed about protected activity.
“Not only was the show about the country’s first black attorney general, it was also being created (and named), in part, by the country’s first black attorney general,” the CAA lawyers stated in their court papers. “In dodging his own pleadings, the plaintiff wants this court to believe that the allegation which forms the basis of this … motion is something other than the creation of a television show.”
The lawsuit “clearly alleges that defendants misappropriated (Musero’s) creative work and developed or created their own show in conjunction with producer Jerry Bruckheimer, Bruckheimer TV and writer Penn,” the CAA lawyers further contended. “Black letter law dictates that these would be protected activities, if true.”