A judge on Wednesday delivered a significant victory to AMC Networks in their long battle for “The Walking Dead” earnings.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Daniel J. Buckley held that the cable network had the right to define “modified adjusted gross receipts” under the terms of its contracts with the profit participants.
Comic creator Robert Kirkman filed the lawsuit in 2017, along with producers Gale Anne Hurd, Glen Mazzara and David Alpert. The lawsuit accused the network of paying the fee to license the program from its production arm, AMC Studios.
The lawsuit followed a similar claim from series creator Frank Darabont, seeking nearly $ 300 million in unpaid earnings in a lawsuit in New York. That case, first presented in 2013, is scheduled to be tried sometime next year.
In the Los Angeles case, Buckley conducted a “mini trial” in February and March to focus on the issue of the proper definition of MAGR. AMC claims that it has been making the correct profit-sharing payments as per its standard definition, and argued that the plaintiffs urged the judge to rewrite the agreement after the fact.
In a 59-page ruling on Wednesday, Buckley ruled that AMC’s position is correct.
“All the relevant contractual provisions are unequivocal and demonstrate that the AMR definition of AMC is binding,” the judge wrote.
AMC chief attorney Orin Snyder praised the ruling in a statement.
“Today’s decision is a complete victory for AMC,” he said. “The judge found in favor of AMC on the seven issues brought up at trial and confirmed that AMC fulfilled its contracts and paid Mr. Kirkman and the other plaintiffs what was owed to them. As the court found, these plaintiffs had the most sophisticated Hollywood attorneys and agents and got what they negotiated. We are now turning our attention to the trial in New York, which involves very similar claims by CAA and Frank Darabont, confident that the first court to hold a trial on these matters ruled entirely in AMC’s favor. ”
The Los Angeles case will now be tried on the remaining issues, unless the parties can resolve their dispute out of court.
