Decision on Friday the 13th court case expected in May or June

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

Lawyers representing FRIDAY THE 13TH director/producer Sean S. Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller met in court yesterday to argue their case in the continuing battle over the U.S. copyright to the original F13. The audio from this entire court session has been posted online, but if you don't want to spend 30 minutes listening to legalese, entertainment lawyer Larry Zerner once again has our back and has broken the arguments down for the fans. 

At the core of this fight is whether or not Miller crafted the script for FRIDAY THE 13TH as an independent contractor or if this was a work-for-hire job where Cunningham was telling him what to write. Writers are allowed to seek the copyright to their work after 35 years, which Miller did, and a judge previously ruled that he should be granted the copyright to the original film. Cunningham appealed the decision and is still trying to prove that he should have the copyright.

Zerner, who played the character Shelly in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART III, took to his Twitter account to post a thread in which he takes note of every major moment from yesterday's oral arguments. Here it goes: 

The oral argument in Horror Inc. v. Miller was just posted.  Here's my take on what happened.  Note: If you're not a copyright lawyer, a lot of this is a technical discussion of copyright law.

First up was Horror Inc.'s (i.e., Sean Cunningham's) lawyer Kathleen Sullivan.  Her main argument was that the lower court erred by not considering the fact that this was a WGA agreement as part of the CCNV v. Reid factors.  The judges gave a lot of push back to this argument. CCNV v. Reid lays out 9 factors that a court must look at in deciding whether someone is an employee or an independent contractor.  KS argued that although no other courts have ruled this way, the court should consider WGA membership as a 10th factor. Judges asked a lot of questions about this and (IMHO) they didn't seem to be buying her argument).  There was also discussion over the tax treatment of Victor's payments (e.g., withholding). She said it was Victor's burden to prove this and he didn't do so. Finally, she argued that Sean had control over Victor when he wrote the script.  Then she ran out of time. 

Next up, Mark Toberoff for Victor Miller. MT argued it wasn't that the judge didn't consider the WGA, he just gave it no weight.  Also said that Victor did prove that there were no tax deductions on the script payment. And said that Sean never even made the health care payments to the WGA so what is he talking about? He said that although the judge found the issue of control weight slightly in Sean's favor, the other factors all weighed strongly in Victor's favor.  MT got less pushback than Sean's lawyer did from the court (not that you can always tell anything from that fact). MT finished, "My only regret is that this hearing is on Thursday the 13th, not Friday the 13th." That got a laugh from the court.

KS got back up.  She said that if the Appellate court wasn't going to rule in Sean's favor, at a minimum they should send it back to the district court for a trial on these facts.
 

That was it. The court should rule in May or June. The court can do one of three things. 1) Affirm that Victor won and he owns the rights to the first F13, 2) Reverse and say that Sean owns all the rights or 3) send it back to the district court for a trial. 10/

— Larry Zerner (@Zernerlaw) February 13, 2020

If I had to pick, I would bet that the court affirms and holds that Victor owns the rights (but you never know). If either side loses, they can appeal to the Supreme Court, but very unlikely that the S.Ct. would accept the case. That's it for today. Keep following for updates. pic.twitter.com/3kllvPcxI1

— Larry Zerner (@Zernerlaw) February 13, 2020

So a decision may be coming in May or June – but we can't expect that to be the end of this debate. I'm sure the arguments will continue beyond that. If the case goes to trial in district court, we're probably going to be stuck waiting for a resolution for quite a while. If Cunningham is granted the copyright, Miller can appeal to the Supreme Court. If Miller is still granted the copyright, Cunningham can also appeal to the Supreme Court. Or the two could try to work out a settlement so we can put this behind us and finally get more FRIDAY THE 13TH content and merchandise, but I suspect it's going to be tough to find settlement terms everyone is happy with. Of course, fans are here wishing they had already settled this a couple years ago.