Judge Dismisses ‘Stealth’ Suit Against Time Warner

In a victory for Time Warner Inc., a federal judge in Los Angeles has dismissed a lawsuit brought by a screenwriter who alleged that the entertainment conglomerate turned his script about the hijacking of a nuclear-armed Stealth bomber into a novel written by another author.

U.S. District Judge James M. Ideman said the evidence was “undisputed and overwhelming” that “Target: Stealth,” a 339-page novel published by Warner Books, was the “independent creation” of Dennis Anderson, a journalist who wrote the book under the pen name Jack Merek.

In a decision made public Friday, Ideman said evidence also showed that the novel was marketed and purchased over a year before a 94-page screenplay titled “Stealth” was submitted to Warner Bros. by Hungarian-born filmmaker Georgy Fodor of Los Angeles.

Fodor alleged in a copyright infringement suit that after submitting his screenplay to a high-ranking executive at Warner Bros. in Burbank in 1988, the screenplay was sent without his knowledge to Warner Books in New York and turned into a novel. Fodor claimed that financing for his movie fell through as a result.

He also said the screenplay and book contained more than 50 similar plot and character elements, as well as common errors about the radar-invisible bomber.

But Anderson, a night editor at the Associated Press in Los Angeles, said that any similarities--if they existed--between his novel and the screenplay largely stemmed from the fact that so little was known about the super-secret B-2 bomber before it debuted in late 1988. Anderson, who lives in Palmdale near the site where the bomber was built, wrote news articles when the plane was unveiled.

In rejecting Fodor’s claims, Ideman noted that Fodor, by his own admission, did not submit his screenplay until February, 1988--by which time only minor changes were being made in Anderson’s novel.

Fodor said Friday he had not yet read the judge’s decision, but added: “It’s a terrible injustice and we intend to appeal it.”

Anderson said the lawsuit had damaged his integrity as a journalist.

“I feel like I sustained a lot of harm,” he said. “I feel my name was dragged through the mud unnecessarily. Of course, I’m thrilled to see justice done because it has been an ordeal.”

Anderson noted that in a period of 18 months, no less than four novels about the theft of a Stealth bomber appeared by different publishers.