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Jury Blocks Sale of Oscars

By Hull Hull LLP

div style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); padding-top: 5px; padding-right: 5px; padding-bottom: 5px; padding-left: 5px; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font-size: 12px; "A Los Angeles jury has a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/news/arts/la-me-pickford16-2008dec16,0,5993814.story"barred the sale/a of Oscars won by the Toronto-born silent film star, a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Pickford"Mary Pickford/a.nbsp; pHeirs of Beverly Rogers, the wife of Pickfordrsquo;s third husband, band leader and actor Buddy Rogers, had intended to sell the Oscar she won in 1930 for her performance in the silent film ldquo;Coquetterdquo; and donate the proceeds to charity, but the a href="http://www.oscars.org/"Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences/a intervened to stop them.spannbsp;/span/p pSince 1951, AMPAS has required Oscar winners to sign an agreement providing that if the winner decides to sell the Oscar, AMPAS has first rights to buy it for $10.00.spannbsp;nbsp;While Pickford did not sign the agreement when she won her first Oscar in 1930, she did sign it when she was bestowed with a honorary Oscar in 1976./span/p pThe heirs argued that they were not bound by the agreement for a number of reasons. First, as the 1930 Oscar was won prior to 1951, the agreement did not apply it.spannbsp;nbsp;Second, given the chain of succession (the Oscars were inherited by Pickfordrsquo;s husband, then inherited on his death by Beverly Rogers), Rogersrsquo; estate was not bound by the agreement.nbsp;nbsp;Finally, they argued that the signature on the agreement could not have been Pickford because at the time she would have been too ill to sign it.nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;/span/p pAMPAS argued that because Pickford signed the agreement in 1976 and because she was a founder of the academy and remained a member until her death, the 1930 Oscar was grandfathered into the rule providing them with right of first refusal.spannbsp;/span/p pThe jury took only one hour to reach its verdict.spannbsp;nbsp;However, the dispute looks as though it will continue.nbsp;nbsp;The heirsrsquo; lawyers will be back before a judge on equitable and legal issues not heard by the jury and are expected to argue the agreement is unenforceable.nbsp;/span/p pHave a great weekend!/p pMegan F. Connollynbsp;/p /divimg src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/TorontoEstateLawBlog/~4/489398442" height="1" width="1"/

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on December 19, 2008 (boomark / email).