Watchmen lawsuit original documents

I tried to post this as a comment on the relevant Blog@ thread, but alas, it was rejected as spam--understandable, given the digi-tons of linked junk that shows up in my own filters. Anyway, since I pulled this all together, here it is. No substantive comment for now; I'm working on some thought-intensive projects that are going to keep my blog posts for the next week or so confined to shiny things I run across in the course of my work. However, I will note that cases like this illustrate why I emphasize the value of savvy due diligence and explore worst-case scenarios.

For those who want to check out the original source material, here are the the Fox complaint, Warner Brothers' response, the disputed legal documents and the judge's order.

Arguably the most explosive sentence in the order: "It is particularly noteworthy that nothing on the face of the complaint or the documents supplied to the Court establishes that Gordon, the claimed source of Warner Brothers' interest in 'Watchmen,' ever acquired any rights in 'Watchmen.'"

As several reports state, Warner Brothers faced a similar situation before, when, in 2005, the same judge granted a preliminary injunction that would have kept The Dukes of Hazzard movie from being released, prompting the studio to agree to a multimillion dollar settlement. The plaintiff's lawyer in the Hazzard case: Marc Toberoff, who is now representing the Siegel heirs.

FOR THE RECORD UPDATE: Since a number of people are interested in the documents in this case, for the sake of completeness here are the studios' responses regarding the motion to dismiss and, for real inside baseball, the motions and order regarding whether the court has jurisdiction to hear the case. If you don't want to wade through all the legal arguments, a couple of the documents stand out: Fox's chart of alleged misstatements by Warner Brothers and the original 1990 purchase agreement between DC Comics and Fox.