Stanfill Reportedly Gets $4 Million as He Settles Fox Suit

Former top movie studio executive Dennis Stanfill settled his wrongful termination and slander lawsuit against 20th Century Fox Film Corp. and its former owner, Marvin Davis, on Monday. Stanfill’s lawyer said his client is getting $4 million.

But Davis disputed the $4-million figure and said the amount was “substantially less.” Meanwhile, a Fox spokeswoman said that the company is “not verifying the $4-million number” and added that some of the money is to be in pension payments. She gave no further information.

Stanfill attorney Marshall Grossman called the settlement “a record in entertainment industry contract disputes.”

Monday’s settlement came on the eve of trial after five weeks of complicated preliminary motions argued before Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Eli Chernow.

Davis himself will not pay any of the settlement cost. Rupert Murdoch, as Fox’s present owner, agreed to indemnify Davis when he acquired the studio last year.

Stanfill sued Davis and Fox shortly after his departure as chairman and chief executive of the studio in June, 1981. He charged that Fox and Davis conspired to force him out after he fired a key executive for alleged expense account irregularities.

Immediately after the settlement, Stanfill broke a five-year public silence about his departure from a studio that he had been credited with saving from bankruptcy 15 years ago. “The central issue really was business ethics,” he commented in an interview.

Asked about precluding a public airing of his case in court, the 59-year-old executive said he thinks that the magnitude of the settlement “makes my point.”

Elaborating, Stanfill pointed out that he had ordered the firing of Fox Television chief Harris Katleman after “carefully investigating” his expense reports but that Davis “reversed my decision without consulting me--and behind my back.” Katleman is still in charge of 20th Century Fox Television.

Stanfill, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who then served 10 years on active duty before switching to corporate finance, said he will use a part of the settlement cash to further stress the issue he had dramatized in the case by setting up an annual seminar on business ethics at a major Southern California university that he will select.

Praise for Diller

Also, Stanfill took the occasion to praise Barry Diller, present Fox chairman and chief executive under Murdoch’s ownership, for being instrumental in settling the case.

Noting that Diller “inherited” the case, Stanfill added: “It was not of his making and involved a code of conduct contrary to Mr. Diller’s own high standards. He resolved the problem with sensitivity and fairness. I wish him and Fox the best for the future.”

Grossman said the big settlement “affirms the rights and responsibilities of chief executive officers to maintain high standards of business conduct.”

In contrast to most cases of contract disputes settled out of court, Grossman said he refused to enter any agreement to keep silent about the details afterward.

Although attorneys for Fox and Davis made no comment after leaving court, Davis later reacted strongly after hearing reports of comments by Stanfill.

Pretrial Victory

In a prepared statement from a press agent, Davis said:

“Dennis Stanfill’s claims of vindication are sadly misplaced. My agreement to participate in this settlement--which entails no payment on my part--is based entirely on my desire to end the distraction which this litigation was causing.

“The present value of the settlement is, in fact, substantially less than that stated by Mr. Stanfill’s counsel. I am confident that, had the judicial process been carried through to its conclusion, it would have been proven clearly and convincingly that there was no impropriety in connection with Mr. Stanfill’s departure.”

Stanfill’s attorney also said his client won a major pretrial victory when Judge Chernow refused to keep Katleman’s expense account details from going before the jury if it got to trial.

Among other things, Grossman said he had planned to present testimony in trial from singer Dionne Warwick, who he said was named in Katleman’s expense account. She said in her deposition, Grossman said, that Katleman not only did not entertain her during a 1981 trip to Europe but that “I don’t even know the man.”

Katleman, after hearing press reports on some of Grossman’s comments, said later through a Fox public relations spokesman that he was “not going to open old wounds and engage in back-fence gossip.”

He added: “This is the kind of matter that has many possible interpretations. Suffice it to say that my interpretation is very different from Mr. Grossman’s. If Mr. Grossman finds pleasure in making gratuitous statements about me, that is his business. My business is running 20th Century Fox Television.”