MacDonald v. Du Maurier

75 F. Supp. 655, 76 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 290, 1948 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3370
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedJanuary 14, 1948
StatusPublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 75 F. Supp. 655 (MacDonald v. Du Maurier) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
MacDonald v. Du Maurier, 75 F. Supp. 655, 76 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 290, 1948 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3370 (S.D.N.Y. 1948).

Opinion

BRIGHT, District Judge.

This action is one seeking a judgment for an alleged infringement of copyrights. Edwina Levin MacDonald, originally the plaintiff, has died since the commencement of the action and her ancillary administrator has been substituted. In her lifetime she wrote “I Planned to Murder My Husband”, a confession story published in this country in Hearst’s International Magazine of October, 1924. She incorporated that story in the novel “Blind Windows”, which was published by the Macauley Company, in New York, in 1927.

In 1938, the novel “Rebecca”, written by the defendant Daphne DuMaurier, an English authoress, was published in this country by the defendant Doubleday Doran & Company, Inc. In 1939 it was made into a motion picture by the same name, produced by the defendants Selznick International Pictures, Inc. and David O. Selznick, Inc., and, in March 1940, released and distributed for exhibition by the defendant United Artists Corporation.

Plaintiff claims, and defendants deny, that “Rebecca” infringes the copyrights of “I Planned to Murder My Husband” and “Blind Windows”, that the defendant Du-Maurier had access to Mrs. MacDonald’s *656 works, and has substantially copied the same. A list of some 46 parallelisms is submitted by plaintiff as illustrative of the claimed plagiarism.

“I Planned to Murder My Husband”, written in the first person, purports to detail the feelings and experiences of a 16 year old unnamed girl, who, three months after graduation from a finishing school, marries Howard, a divorced man, 31 years old, of distinct Latin type. She goes to his home and sees there the furnishings, wedding presents, ornaments and servants of Della the first wife. Frequent references to her by the husband, servants and friends, and the surroundings in the home, engender a bitter jealousy of the first wife and hate for the husband and the thought that he still loved Della. The second wife’s hate is further inflamed by Howard’s cruel' and vicious nature and violent temper, and she reaches the conclusion that her only salvation lies in her husband’s death. Nearing the hour when this is to be accomplished, she entertains many at her “Farewell Party”, and later dreams that she has accomplished his death. The shock wakes her. Her hysterical pouring out of the dream and her long months of suffering convinces her husband of her love for him, causes him to confide in her that he had wearied of his first wife and finally, because of her fickleness and public misbehavior, had divorced her. Shortly afterwards he .dies, she finds out he had nothing, was not rich, only the son of a rich man, and she leaves the home. Later she meets ixe first wife and then discovers how futile had been her passion. The story ends without climax. It later developed in the deposition of Mrs. MacDonald, taken in this action, that the story is really a partial autobiography of her life.

“Blind Windows” concededly is “I Planned to Murder My Husband”, amplified and embellished. The first 200 pages are devoted to the life of the second wife, now identified by the name of Wilda Garnett, prior to and including her marriage and honeymoon, and her acquaintance with Ned Turner, a boy neighbor, which really has ripened into love. She is introduced by him to Vallon Dupre, about 35, French, and divorced. Between pages 200 and 361 is found the first story, in more detail, the first wife being named Ida, and expanded from a confession story into a novel, and which also ends without a climax. The balance of the book takes her back to Ned and a renewal of the acquaintance between them.

“Rebecca” is written in the first person, the narrator never being identified other than by “I”. She is 21 and employed as a companion of Mrs. Van Hopper. While at Monte Carlo with Mrs. Van Hopper she is-introduced to Max deWinter, an Englishman, about 42, who had been previously married and whose wife, Rebecca, is said to have been drowned. They are married after a short acquaintance, and following a honeymoon in Italy, he-takes her to Manderley, his manor house in England. There she meets, among others, Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, devotedly attached to the first wife, who obviously resents what she deems the intrusion of the second wife; and who finally almost causes “I” to commit suicide. The story is climaxed in the discovery of the body of the first wife in her boat sunk in the bay near Manderley, the confession by deWinter to “I” that he had murdered her, a coroner’s inquest at which there is a finding of the first wife’s suicide, the burning of the manor house, perhaps by Dan-vers, and the subsequent quiet and contented life of “I” with her husband.

This action has already felt the impress of judicial decision. Amotion for judgment on the pleadings was made by the defendant Doubleday, which was granted, Judge Bondy holding that the two stories were different, and that, although there were many similarities, they were suggested by the basic plot and environment and did not constitute a substantial and material part of the copyrighted matter in plaintiff’s story. Upon appeal, the Circuit Court reversed, 2 Cir., 144 F.2d 696, 700, in an opinion by Judge Swan, concurred in by Judge L. Hand, Judge Clark dissenting. Both sides take comfort from what was there written. What was then actually decided was that,, because on such a motion access and copying must be assumed and conceded, the question remaining was whether the borrowing' was a “fair use”, the determination of which required that plaintiff have her day in court. Judge Swan wrote: “Because of the way the case came on — a motion for *657 judgment on the pleadings — we must assume not only that the author of the book charged with infringing had access to the plaintiff's copyrighted works but also that she actually copied those parts common to both. * * * If so the only answer to the charge of tortious plagiarism must be that the common matter was either in the public domain or was so trifling as not to count. * * * Even though some of them (the similarities) may he far fetched, for example, the reference to trees looking like sentinels, so many remain that the common matter is not so trifling that it can he ignored. Consequently the question comes down to whether the author’s borrowing, although substantial in amount, was a ‘fair use.’ That is always a troublesome question. In the case at bar the supposititious borrowings are not in the general outline of plot and character: in ‘ideas’ as opposed to ‘expression.’ On the contrary they consist in a series of concrete incidents and details, and if in fact these were all borrowed from the plaintiff, we cannot properly hold that the common matter was outside the protection of the copyright law.”

Obviously the Circuit Court did not intend to decide, or to eliminate for decision by this court, the issues of access and copying. Another portion of the prevailing opinion, to which my attention has been directed by defendant’s counsel, contains statements which are obviously obiter.

After the reversal, the same defendant moved for summary judgment, apparently adopting the suggestion made in the prevailing opinion, on appeal, that upon such a motion it might be satisfactorily established that there was neither access nor copying. However, the motion was denied, D.C., 75 F.Supp.

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Bluebook (online)
75 F. Supp. 655, 76 U.S.P.Q. (BNA) 290, 1948 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3370, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/macdonald-v-du-maurier-nysd-1948.