This stinks to high heaven - judges just seem to see things the studios' way in this town. I wonder how that happens so consistently. Maybe one of you enterprising journalists out there could look into that. The merits of this case would dictate a loss for Disney.

Reminds me of the Peggy Lee case. She sued for royalties on DVD and -- I think -- video versions of "Lady and the Tramp," for which she wrote and sang several songs.

Disney's argument -- with a straight face, as far as i can tell -- was they she didn't earn royalties on those, because home video didn't exist when she signed the contract.

By the time she won (God bless you, there's at least one judge who isn't getting a free pass to Disneyland)she was dead.

I thbnk Disney won when it got this case transferred to a new judge... It is supposedly a bullet-proof decision but I suspect parts of it will be thrown out on appeal. It was a great
story and I guess this is an amazing ending - for now.

Well, where did the guy get the documents? The dumpster story seems fishy. I'll agree that Disney is the limb of Satan but the family of the literary agent who bought the rights for very little money aren't saints either. A.A. Milne has living descendants who'll get butkis, no matter how the court rules.

Kate Coe says "butkis" but I have seen the Yiddish word also spelled "bupkis." Anyone know which is correct or if both spellings are acceptable transliterations?

The Yiddish word is bupkes (also spelled bupkis, bubkes and bubkis). Literally translated, it means "beans." In colloquial usage it means "nothing."

I think Butkis is Yiddish for linebacker.

Thanks!

BTW, what would be a good name for a Yiddish-speaking football team?

Sorry--not caffinated enough--if I could ever be.
The WSJ piece says the PI trailed a truck to a recycling center. Isn't there a presupposition of privacy in regard to materials sent to be recycled? As someone who earns a living in rights and clearances, I'm pretty engrossed by this case.

What concerns me is the constant favoritism showed studios in this sort of litigation in Los Angeles. Judges often appear to be almost maybe on the take. I'm not sure, but I think the right to privacy stops at the curb - you put your recycling out and then it's the recyler's property - if you want to get rid of reams and reams of incriminating documents (which Disney obviously did)you'd best shred them.

On the merits, again, Disney should never win this case.

I think the right to privacy stops at the curb - you put your recycling out and then it's the recyler's property - if you want to get rid of reams and reams of incriminating documents (which Disney obviously did) you'd best shred them.

You're arguing a false premise -- that Disney blithely put reams of documents at the curb and the investigator simply picked them up.

That may be his story, but it stretches credulity, particularly in that the document supposedly discarded behind one office were from executives who worked in a totally different place.

I loathe of Disney (which by the way DID shred other documents, and was caught and sanctioned for it) as much as the next guy. But Dan Petrocelli is a good lawyer, and he shredded the gumshoe's credibility.

Dan is a great lawyer, and strategically hios moves on this case were brilliant. But one gentleman above suggested that some judges are on the take when it omes to studio litigation. In fact, after the decision on eof the plaintiffs wrote me and said it was the result of the "political system." I am not sure that money changes hands, but there is a bar to success in this kind of litigation that every plaintiff against the studios seems to encounter unless they are another studio or have enough money to own one. That said, I think the decision may not survive on appeal simply because it was a punishment unequal to the alleged crime. Moreover, I think the terminating
sanction is intended for simpler cases, not a
case that is in the complex litgation division,
so it is a blunt and narrow instrument that has been applied in a broad way that is overreaching.

But didn't Paramount lose to Art Buchwald?

California vs Greenwood
No. 86-684

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
486 U.S. 35
January 11, 1988
May 16, 1988

CERTIORARI TO THE COURT OF APPEAL OF CALIFORNIA, FOURTH APPELLATE DISTRICT

Syllabus
Acting on information indicating that respondent Greenwood might be engaged in narcotics trafficking, police twice obtained from his regular trash collector garbage bags left on the curb in front of his house. On the basis of items in the bags which were indicative of narcotics use, the police obtained warrants to search the house, discovered controlled substances during the searches, and arrested respondents on felony narcotics charges. Finding that probable cause to search the house would not have existed without the evidence obtained from the trash searches, the State Superior Court dismissed the charges under People v. Krivda, 5 Cal.3d 357, 486 P.2d 1262, which held that warrantless trash searches violate the Fourth Amendment and the California Constitution. Although noting a post-Krivda state constitutional amendment eliminating the exclusionary rule for evidence seized in violation of state, but not federal, law, the State Court of Appeal affirmed on the ground that Krivda was based on federal, as well as state, law.

Held:

1. The Fourth Amendment does not prohibit the warrantless search and seizure of garbage left for collection outside the curtilage of a home. Pp. 39-44 .

(a) Since respondents voluntarily left their trash for collection in an area particularly suited for public inspection, their claimed expectation of privacy in the inculpatory items they discarded was not objectively reasonable. It is common knowledge that plastic garbage bags left along a public street are readily accessible to animals, children, scavengers, snoops, and other members of the public. Moreover, respondents placed their refuse at the curb for the express purpose of conveying it to a third party, the trash collector, who might himself have sorted through it or permitted others, such as the police, to do so. The police cannot reasonably be expected to avert their eyes from evidence of criminal activity that could have been observed by any member of the public. Pp. 43-44 .

(b) Greenwood's alternative argument that his expectation of privacy in his garbage should be deemed reasonable as a matter of federal constitutional law because the warrantless search and seizure of his garbage was impermissible as a matter of California law under Krivda, [p*36] which he contends survived the state constitutional amendment, is without merit. The reasonableness of a search for Fourth Amendment purposes does not depend upon privacy concepts embodied in the law of the particular State in which the search occurred; rather, it turns upon the understanding of society as a whole that certain areas deserve the most scrupulous protection from government invasion. There is no such understanding with respect to garbage left for collection at the side of a public street. Pp. 43-44 .

2. Also without merit is Greenwood's contention that the California constitutional amendment violates the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Just as this Court's Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule decisions have not required suppression where the benefits of deterring minor police misconduct were overbalanced by the societal costs of exclusion, California was not foreclosed by the Due Process Clause from concluding that the benefits of excluding relevant evidence of criminal activity do not outweigh the costs when the police conduct at issue does not violate federal law. Pp. 44-45 .

182 Cal.App.3d 729, 227 Cal.Rptr. 539, reversed and remanded.

WHITE, J., delivered the opinion of the Court, in which REHNQUIST, C.J., and BLACKMUN, STEVENS, O'CONNOR, and SCALIA, JJ., joined. BRENNAN, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which MARSHALL, J., joined, post, p. 45 . KENNEDY, J., took no part in the consideration or decision of the case. [p*37]

Opinions
WHITE, J., Opinion of the Court

JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.