Rearden LLC v. The Walt Disney Company

Nature of the order

This was a pretrial order addressing disputes in the parties’ revised joint pretrial statement and proposed jury instructions. It did not enter judgment on the underlying claims.

Evidence of the injunction and later conduct

The court treated Disney’s argument about evidence of the injunction and post-injunction conduct as a motion in limine, meaning a request to decide before trial whether particular evidence may be presented. The court denied the motion.

Instructions about the earlier SHST litigation

The court stated that the jury would hear about an earlier lawsuit between Rearden and Shezhenshi Haitiecheng Science and Technology Co. Ltd., referred to as “SHST,” which the order says was an affiliate of DD3. The court instructed that the earlier trial court found on August 11, 2017, that Rearden—not DD3 or its affiliates—owned the MOVA assets and ordered DD3 to return them. The earlier appellate court affirmed that decision on July 31, 2020.

The court also instructed that Walt Disney Pictures was not a party to the SHST lawsuit. The jury was told to make its own determination, based on the evidence at this trial, about whether a person identified in the instruction owned MOVA Contour and was authorized to transfer it to SHST. The court noted that it had already decided in this case that Walt Disney Pictures was not liable for any infringement by DD3 that may have occurred after June 17, 2016.

The court separately instructed the jury about a June 17, 2016 preliminary injunction in the SHST litigation. That injunction ordered DD3 to stop using MOVA Contour and ordered VGH to provide the injunction to studios working with DD3 using MOVA Contour. The court emphasized that the preliminary injunction did not decide Rearden’s ownership claims at that time.

Vicarious-liability instruction

The court adopted Plaintiffs’ proposed instruction 17.20 but added the word “practical” before “ability” in paragraph two.

Business records and hearsay objection

The court found that documents authenticated by Ryan Stankevich’s declaration were business records. Rearden objected that the documents contained hearsay within hearsay, including statements by people who had viewed Beauty and the Beast. Disney disagreed but acknowledged that the issue might need to be considered document by document.

The court concluded that the objection had been raised for the first time in briefing. Because the parties had agreed to stipulate to the admissibility of pre-authenticated business records and to allow expert witnesses to sponsor those exhibits at trial, and because the court found the documents were business records, it overruled Rearden’s objection to the exhibits.

Other evidence and instructions

The court overruled Disney’s objection to evidence of MOVA’s ownership before August 2012. It adopted Plaintiffs’ proposed Instruction 1.5 and adopted Plaintiff’s proposed Instruction 17.1 with the same addition of “practical” before “ability,” as requested by Defendant.

Disposition and effect

The court denied the motion concerning evidence of the injunction and post-injunction conduct, overruled the identified evidentiary objections, and specified which jury instructions it would give, including the stated modifications. These rulings governed the presentation of evidence and instructions at trial and did not resolve the underlying claims on their merits.