Warner gets victory in legal fight with Superman heirs’ attorney
Warner Bros. has won the rights to use what it believes could be damaging documents in its long-running legal fight to hold on to the rights to Superman.
The ruling from three U.S. Court of Appeals judges issued Tuesday came as part of the studio’s lawsuit against Marc Toberoff, a pugnacious attorney who represents the heirs of Superman creators Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.
But Warner believes the documents will ultimately prove critical in the effort of its DC Comics division to retain the rights to the superhero, which Toberoff has asserted should revert to the Siegel and Shuster heirs in 2013.
According to Tuesday’s ruling, the documents in question were sent by an attorney who formerly worked for Toberoff to Warner Bros. prior to June 2006. A cover letter that accompanied the documents said they show that the Siegel heirs’ prior attorney threatened that, if they worked with Toberoff, he would testify that the heirs had previously reached a settlement agreement with the studio.
-- Ben Fritz, Los Angeles Times