Company Town : Producer Who Alleged CBS Used His Script Gets $7.3 Million

A Los Angeles Superior Court jury on Monday awarded $7.3 million to a producer who sued MCA Inc. alleging that a script he wrote while working at the company in the early 1980s was used as the basis for the current CBS show “Northern Exposure,” his lawyer said.

Sandy Veith, whose credits include writing for such shows as “The Jeffersons” and “Good Times,” had alleged that “Northern Exposure” stemmed from an idea he developed for a show called “Coletta” when he worked at MCA from 1981 to 1986.

Veith’s lawyer, Glen L. Kulik, said the show--made by MCA’s Universal Television unit--has a number of similarities to Veith’s “Coletta,” in which he wrote about a doctor from New York who following medical school goes to practice in a small rural town. “Coletta” at various times was optioned in the 1980s to both NBC and ABC, but was never made into a series.

An attorney for MCA promised that the firm would challenge the judgment, saying “it just makes no sense.”

The jury awarded $4.45 million to Veith for loss of screen credit, with the rest being compensatory damages.