Stan Lee Media, Inc. v. Lee

MEMORANDUM

This appeal challenges the dismissal of Stan Lee Media, Inc.’s (SLMI) claims that its intellectual property rights in comic book characters were violated by the legendary comic book creator Stan Lee. We affirm because SLMI failed to satisfy pleading requirements.

To survive a motion to dismiss, a party must allege “enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 570 , 127 S.Ct. 1955 , 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007); see also Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678 , 129 S.Ct. 1937 , 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009). Accepting as true the allegations made by SLMI in its complaint, Lee v. City of Los Angeles, 250 F.3d 668, 679 (9th Cir.2001), the claims to the vast majority of properties fall short of the pleading requirement established in Iqbal-TwomMy.

Appellant’s central contention is that, in October 1998, Stan Lee assigned SLMI rights to valuable comic book characters, including Spider-Man, The X-Men, The Incredible Hulk, The Fantastic Four, Iron Man, Thor, Daredevil, and others (“the Marvel characters”), and then breached that assignment. This argument is simply implausible.

The record demonstrates that, between the…