On Thursday, August 1, 2024, following a two-and-a-half-month jury trial, a Santa Monica Superior Court jury returned a complete defense verdict in favor of longtime KHIKS client Mattel, Inc. in a long-running dispute with a billionaire East Coast real estate developer, Norton Herrick, who claimed that the toy company stole a format that he had optioned and later presented to Mattel in 2014 for a reality show about toy inventors featuring child judges.
Mattel was represented at trial by a large KHIKS team including Managing Partner Larry Iser, partners Patti Millett, Kristen Spanier, and Chad Fitzgerald, associate Shivani Morrison, and paralegals Chris Avalos and Linda Mason. The firm has proudly represented Mattel since 1997, and for whom it has never lost at trial.
Herrick sued Mattel in 2019 following the run of the ABC television show “The Toy Box,” a reality competition show featuring toy inventors. Mattel sponsored “The Toy Box” and manufactured the winning toy. Herrick claimed at trial that Mattel breached an implied contract to hold the format in confidence, that the format contained “trade secrets” that Mattel disclosed to the producers of “The Toy Box,” and that Mattel committed fraud by misrepresenting its intentions and concealing its involvement in “The Toy Box” from Herrick. During the trial, the KHIKS lawyers presented substantial evidence that Herrick’s format was not novel, that the format did not include any trade secrets (and that Herrick and his optionor had publicly disclosed the format in any event), that the same reality show concept had been suggested to Mattel by several different reality show producers during 2014, and “The Toy Box” was independently created by one of those reality show producers. KHIKS also put on evidence that no fraud occurred and that Herrick did not rely on any alleged misrepresentation or concealment because after Herrick entered into a 2015 agreement with the CW to develop the format, the CW passed on the project after viewing a presentation video of the format co-produced by Herrick. Mr. Herrick admitted at trial that the presentation video of his format was “lousy.” Mattel also argued at trial that as a first-time television producer, Herrick’s claimed monetary damages were entirely speculative.
The Santa Monica Superior Court jury deliberated for three days before returning a “defense verdict” for Mattel as to each of Herrick’s claims.
Coverage of the win for Mattel appeared in Variety, The Hollywood Reporter, The Los Angeles and San Francisco Daily Journal, and Law360.
