State Court Orders Warner Bros. to Pay Producer : Legal: Studio will have to pay $1.46 million, plus interest, for fraudulently squeezing him out of a movie project. The decision could help others making similar claims.

In a court decision that may have a broad impact for the rights of producers and creators in dealing with major studios, Warner Bros. will have to pay television producer John Mantley $1.46 million, plus interest, for fraudulently squeezing him out of a movie project.

In a decision revealed this week, a three-judge panel of the California State Court of Appeal upheld a 1989 verdict reached by a Los Angeles Superior Court jury against Warner Bros. The Court of Appeal affirmed nearly all of the jury’s original $1.59 million award, according to Mantley’s attorney, Daniel C. Rosenberg of Stein & Kahan in Santa Monica.

Rosenberg said Tuesday that the 1989 decision offers a means for producers, directors and actors to challenge studios if they believe they have been unfairly removed from a project.

Mantley’s case for fraud was not based on money due him under his contract, Rosenberg said, “but on the value of the literary rights that he was induced to transfer to Warner in the belief that Warner would use Mantley’s services.”

Warner Bros. was unable to issue a statement by Calendar’s deadline on Tuesday. (After the 1989 verdict, the studio said the jury’s decision would not withstand judicial review.)

Mantley, who produced TV’s “Gunsmoke” and “How the West Was Won” series, said he had been cut out of the development stage of the film project, which was based on a series of short stories from “I Robot” and “The Rest of the Robots,” two books by Isaac Asimov. Mantley took the project to Warner in 1977. He said he had an oral agreement from producer Edward Lewis and the studio that he would serve as producer on the project, but after years of being in development it never saw the light of day.

Mantley charged that the studio committed fraud and breach of contract by leading him to believe he would be a producer and then cutting him out of the project.

Rosenberg said the court informed him that $127,000 in breach of contract damages was not awarded to his client, because the extent of damages could not be determined. But, he said the court ordered Warner Bros. to pay $1 in nominal damages for breach of contract.