LOS ANGELES — A lawsuit brought by owners of the Winnie the Pooh merchandising rights should be thrown out because they withheld, stole and possibly manufactured documents over the 13 years the case has been pending, a lawyer for the Walt Disney Co. said Tuesday.
Disney attorney Daniel Petrocelli said the actions of Steven Slesinger Inc. over the years have so prejudiced their case against Disney that the judge has no option but to dismiss it.
"Rarely do you ever see a case where the rules have been broken so badly, so often, and so unapologetically," Petrocelli said during a hearing on the matter.
SSI lawyer Eric Ferrer said the company did not steal documents, arguing that Disney was only making that claim in an effort to delay a trial on the merits of SSI's lawsuit.
"What my clients want is their day in court, and this is not that day," Ferrer said, adding that Disney was the one that stole and destroyed documents.
SSI sued Disney in 1991, claiming the company owes millions for Pooh-related merchandise and has not paid royalties on the sale of videotapes, DVDs and computer software.
Disney claims those items were not covered in its agreement.
The hearing that began Tuesday is expected to last several days. If a judge does not dismiss the case as Disney has asked, a trial is scheduled for January.
Disney has claimed SSI, which licensed the merchandising rights for the Winnie the Pooh characters to Disney in 1983, obtained confidential documents by rifling through a trash bin and stealing them from desks in Disney offices.
Petrocelli said a private investigator hired by SSI stole more than 6,000 pages of documents from a trash bin and the company's offices over a period of years. The private investigator was scheduled to testify later in the hearing.
Petrocelli also said that for years SSI has refused to produce key documents and then only produced them long after their authors had died and could not be interviewed.
"The people who could challenge these oral accounts in these documents had passed away," he said.