Legal Dispute
Family became the subject of one of the lengthiest legal disputes in television history, due to a lawsuit that was filed by writer Jeri Emmet in 1977. The claim was against Spelling Television and alleged that Spelling had stolen the idea for the show from a script that Emmet had submitted, entitled, "The Best Years".
Spelling responded to the lawsuit with a statement explaining that he had conceived of the idea in his kitchen with Leonard Goldberg, Spelling's partner at the time. The concept was then passed onto Jay Presson Allen, who was hired to write the pilot script. Allen, who died in May 2006, had just completed the screenplay for the film, Funny Lady, starring Barbra Streisand and directed by Herbert Ross.
After more than a decade in court, a jury found in favor of Emmet to the sum of USD$1.69 million; however, Spelling then overturned this decision following an appeal process.
Emmet sued Spelling a second time in 1996 after Spelling had published his memoirs; she claimed that Spelling had defamed her in his book, as she had not been credited with conceiving of the original idea for Family. Again, Emmet lost on appeal in 2001, with the court stating, "You can't steal the same idea twice!" The litigation finally concluded close to twenty-five years after the show first aired on television, with Allen retaining her "Created by" credit for the series.
Read more about this topic: Family (TV series)
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