In a long-awaited ruling, a decide has discovered that CAA didn’t steal a TV present thought from a author to provide to a higher-profile shopper.

However Choose Kerry Bensinger additionally discovered that the company has an obligation to be trustworthy and sincere to shoppers, and should have breached that responsibility when it positioned the author on a secret record of underperformers.

John Musero, the author in query, sued the company again in 2019, claiming that his agent, Andrew Miller, stole his thought for a present in regards to the lawyer common entitled “Predominant Justice.” One other Miller shopper, Sascha Penn, later bought a pilot to CBS for an lawyer common present additionally referred to as “Predominant Justice.” Although the pilot was produced, the present was not picked up.

Musero’s lawsuit alleged that there have been many similarities between the 2 pilot scripts. Each opened with a automobile crash and closed with an assassination try on the lawyer common. Each additionally had terrorism subplots and included an analogy between the justice system and refereeing in basketball.

Musero, a former in-house counsel at Columbia Photos, beforehand labored on the Aaron Sorkin present “The Newsroom.” He argued that his “Predominant Justice” script was written in a Sorkin-esque, “West Wing” type and that Penn’s script had adopted the identical sensibility.

The decide discovered that Musero couldn’t declare Penn had copied the “West Wing” type from him, discovering it extra believable that each writers had taken it from “The West Wing.”

“The type and pacing of every ‘Predominant Justice’ undertaking is attributable to the identical influential tv present — ‘The West Wing,’” Bensinger wrote. “Additional, in a legal-political undertaking equivalent to a DOJ tv drama, the ‘West Wing’ type is a standard kind of presentation.”

The decide additionally dominated that a lot of the different similarities are unprotectable, and in addition discovered conclusive proof that Penn had independently authored his script earlier than Musero submitted his script to his agent.

“CAA is gratified by the decide’s ruling, dismissing John Musero’s declare that CAA misappropriated his thought for a pilot,” an company spokesperson stated in a press release. “Andrew Miller has all the time operated with integrity. He’s a world-class agent whose monitor report of success speaks volumes about his diligence, experience, care and concern for one of the best pursuits of his shoppers. We’re happy to lastly transfer on from these baseless accusations.”

In 2016, CAA positioned Musero on its “underperforming writers” record and its “chopping” record — with out telling him that he was in peril of being dropped. Musero argued that his brokers successfully stopped working diligently on his behalf, harming his profession, and that quantities to a breach of fiduciary responsibility.

Of their movement for abstract judgment, CAA’s legal professionals stated that they had discovered “no authority to assist {that a} expertise agent or company owes a duties of constancy and honesty to shoppers” and that due to this fact the “blacklisting” declare must be thrown out.

Bensinger balked at that notion.

“Defendants are laborious pressed to argue the proposition {that a} expertise agent can act dishonestly, disloyally, and opposite to their shopper’s finest pursuits with impunity,” Bensinger wrote, including {that a} expertise agent does have a “responsibility to behave with the utmost good religion in one of the best pursuits of his shopper.”

Whether or not CAA did not uphold that responsibility with respect to Musero can be as much as a jury to determine. Musero should present that he suffered damages from the alleged blacklisting as a way to prevail. A trial is scheduled for Oct. 27.

Bensinger’s ruling was issued to the events on April 1. A redacted model was made public Wednesday.

Musero’s legal professionals have sought to unseal sure data, whereas CAA has sought to maintain its inside conversations confidential, significantly relating to the underperforming writers record and the chopping record. When the 2 sides argued over the abstract judgment movement on March 21, the courtroom was sealed.