A state appellate court Thursday unanimously affirmed the dismissal of a lawsuit filed against Judy Sheindlin, CBS and other defendants in which one woman and the estate of another alleged they were entitled to about $4.95 million when the television star sold the "Judge Judy" series library back to the network in 2017.
The 18-page opinion from the three-justice panel of the Second District Court of Appeal was written by Justice Brian M. Hoffstadt and dealt with Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kristin S. Escalante's March 2022 ruling that dismissed the lawsuit brought against Sheindlin, Big Ticket Pictures, Inc., Her Honor, Inc. and CBS Studios Inc. by plaintiffs Kaye Switzer and the Sandi Spreckman Trust, the developers of the show's first season. Escalante found the plaintiffs did not establish that they were contractually entitled to a cashout and the justices say she made the correct ruling.
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"Plaintiffs' chain of logic seems to be that Big Ticket and Sheindlin schemed to deprive plaintiffs of their lump sum cash-out payment ... ," Hoffstadt wrote, adding that the "undisputed facts show that plaintiffs are not entitled to any lump sum cashout."
Switzer and the late Spreckman, both producers, were the professed creators of the "Judge Judy" show. Spreckman died in 2009 at age 56.
Switzer and Spreckman approached Sheindlin in the mid-1990s and suggested that the family court judge take her career from the courtroom to television, then left the series shortly after deal was completed, according to their suit. The complaint alleged both women were promised compensation for as long as the series ran, even if they were not still producing it.
Big Ticket and CBS transferred the Judge Judy library to Sheindlin during 2015 negotiations for more episodes of the hit series, then she sold the library back to CBS in 2017 for more than $95 million, according to the suit filed in January 2018. Switzer and Spreckman's estate claim the producers should have received a share of that sale.
However, in their court papers arguing in favor of dismissing the suit, the defense attorneys call the plaintiff' claims "meritless" and "premised on the false notion that, in 2015, the CBS defendants sold Judge Sheindlin full ownership rights to the library of past Judge Judy episodes ... and that, in 2017, Judge Sheindlin sold them back"
However, the contracts between CBS and Sheindlin between 2015 and 2017 prove that neither sale ever occurred, according to the defense attorneys' court papers.
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