LOS ANGELES : $1 Million Awarded Heirs of Two of the Three Stooges

Jurors in a financial dispute between the heirs of the Three Stooges awarded $1 million in punitive damages Friday to the relatives of Joe (Curly Joe) DeRita and Larry Fine.

The damages were awarded by the Los Angeles Superior Court jury a week after relatives of DeRita and Fine won more than $2 million in general damages from the heirs of Moe Howard. The plaintiffs sued Howard’s grandson, Jeffrey Scott, and daughter, Joan Maurer, in 1993, alleging that the defendants were shortchanging them on royalties checks from Three Stooges merchandise. The verdicts followed three months of testimony and more than two weeks of jury deliberations.