‘Crash’ Suit Hits Hurdle

The legal skirmish over who deserves credit for producing the Academy Award-winning film “Crash” has taken a new twist.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Edward A. Ferns has issued an order giving independent film financier Bob Yari’s attorneys 10 days to amend their pleadings in their lawsuit, or the case could be thrown out. Yari’s lawyers called the order, known as a demurrer, a legal technicality and plan to file an amended complaint to comply with it.

In March, Yari sued the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences alleging that they had unlawfully ruled that he did not deserve a producer credit for “Crash.” As a result, Yari was not allowed to step on stage to accept the best-picture Oscar along with co-writer and director Paul Haggis and producer Cathy Schulman.

Yari was one of six producers on the film, but the guild determined in an arbitration that he and three other producers were ineligible for producer credit. Yari cried foul, complaining that the guild made its finding in secret, did not allow live testimony and never explained how it arrived at its decision.

Ferns ruled Friday that it wasn’t enough for Yari to have a “subjective belief concerning what he is owed” and that he had to show that an agreement was breached. Under the Code of Civil Procedure, Ferns noted, Yari’s complaint must make clear that the agreement is “written, oral or is implied by conduct.”

Guild attorney George R. Hedges hailed the judge’s ruling. “We didn’t breach any kind of duty to Yari,” he said.

But Yari’s attorney, Patricia L. Glaser, called the ruling a “garden-variety demurrer.”

“We plan to amend the complaint to comply with what the court needs and go forward from there,” she said.