Slesingers Seek New Winnie the Pooh Trial

The family suing Walt Disney Co. over merchandising royalties to Winnie the Pooh has asked the Los Angeles court that threw out the 13-year-old suit to grant a new trial.

The motion by the heirs of Stephen Slesinger -- who hold the merchandising rights to the honey-loving bear -- responds to Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Charles W. McCoy’s March 29 ruling that the family was guilty of misconduct and stealing evidence. McCoy then threw out the case, a move the Slesingers challenged as too harsh a sanction in their filing made late Thursday.

Disney lawyer Daniel Petrocelli said the Slesingers had already made the same points to McCoy. “This argument was made to the court, was considered by the court and properly rejected by the court, and it does not remotely warrant a new trial,” he said.

Legal analysts at the time said McCoy’s 28-page decision was designed to convince an appeals court there was no alternative to dismissing the case.

McCoy in part had said he could not trust the Slesinger family to follow alternative sanctions. In the motion for a new trial, the family’s lawyers responded that the judge could rely on Slesinger lawyers, rather than the Slesingers, to assure a future trial was untainted.

The Slesingers in their new motion said the court did not need to reconsider its conclusion that the family “is dishonest and shows no remorse.”

They said they would hire new lawyers, which would be the ninth team to take up the case for the Slesingers, who acquired U.S. merchandising rights to Pooh in 1930 from British author A.A. Milne.

Members of the current team would oversee document selection to keep out questioned material.

Last week, the Slesingers also asked McCoy to recuse himself, alleging that he had praised Disney in a book he wrote and that a lawyer connected to Disney had worked with McCoy’s old law firm. McCoy has not responded, but Disney has said the lawyer was not working for McCoy’s old firm while on the case.