In 2004, a state court judge threw out the Slesingers' 1991 breach-of-contract lawsuit against Disney after finding misconduct on the part of the family. That judge accused the Slesingers of trying to gain an edge in the litigation by stealing confidential Disney documents from the company's trash, and then lying and altering court papers to cover up the thefts.
On Friday, Petrocelli downplayed the Slesingers' ability to parlay Thursday's ruling into an award for damages.
"The ruling has no bearing on Disney's rights to Pooh nor does it affect the judgment that Disney won, throwing out the Slesingers' state court case with prejudice," he said.
The Slesingers -- Shirley Slesinger Lasswell and her daughter Patricia Slesinger -- have appealed that state court ruling on the breach-of-contract suit.
It was Stephen Slesinger, a New York literary agent and a pioneer in marketing cartoon characters, who acquired the Winnie the Pooh merchandising rights in 1930 from A.A. Milne, the author of the children's stories about the honey-loving bear and his friends including Christopher Robin, Piglet, Tigger and the downtrodden donkey Eeyore.
Slesinger died in 1953 and his widow, Shirley Slesinger, spent several years marketing Pooh on her own. In 1961, she struck a deal with Disney, which used its marketing muscle to turn the bear into gold. In the 1990s, Pooh trumped Mickey Mouse as Disney's most profitable character, raking in more than $1 billion annually for the company
On Friday, Slotnick, the Slesingers' attorney, said that Cooper's ruling would allow them to pursue damages against Disney that the family says could amount to as much as $2 billion.
"It's not over," said Slotnick. "There's more to come."
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meg.james@latimes.com
