Jacobs

Plaintiff appeals from a summary judgment in this action for damages for infringement of plaintiff’s alleged rights in a literary composition.

The complaint alleges as follows: That between March 1944 and January 1948 the plaintiff conceived, originated, and wrote a new and original manuscript titled “No Alternative.” That said work was completed in January 1948 and that plaintiff has not published said manuscript, nor has she permitted any person or corporation to publish said work in book, dramatic, or any other form. During 1948 she contacted defendant Ben Medford, a writer’s agent in Beverly Hills, and relinquished the manuscript to him upon his promise to submit it for revision to defendant Max Catto, a writer. On several occasions thereafter Medford informed her that he has having no success in selling the manuscript to a studio. In 1950 a book titled “The Killing Prost,” written by defendant Catto, was published by Heinman Company in London. That book was written, published, and sold without plaintiff’s consent and in infringement of her common law property rights. That book was copied largely from plaintiff’s manuscript. Thereafter a “movie” was produced by defendants…