Frank Ross v. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, a Corporation

This is an appeal from an order, entered in an action for breach of contract, requiring that all proceedings in the case be stayed to permit the submission of disputed issues to arbitration. The order is interlocutory. However, such a staying of a common law type action for breach of contract is now authoritatively held to be appealable under Section 1292(1) of Title 28 of the United States Code. Baltimore Contractors, Inc., v. Bodinger, 1955, 348 U.S. 176 , 75 S.Ct. 249 , 99 L.Ed. 233 .

The district court had before it the complaint and answer and the text of the contract in suit. The contract is one under which Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, hereinafter called Fox, purchased from appellant’s assign- or motion picture and other rights in a novel entitled “The Robe”. The agreed purchase price was a percentage of the net profits to be realized from the distribution of a motion picture photoplay to be based upon the novel. The contract expressly obligated the purchaser to produce and distribute such a motion picture. Included in the contract were various provisions concerning “distribution in the United States and Alaska”, “distribution in Canada and all other foreign…