Judith Sheindlin, CBS and the production company behind Judge Judy have prevailed in a profits dispute over the massively lucrative courtroom reality series. They will no longer have to face claims accusing them of wrongfully cutting the show’s original producers out of a multimillion-dollar deal for the series library.
The ruling issued on Monday from L.A. Judge Kristin Escalante ends one of numerous lawsuits from a company tied to the series challenging its share of profits from the show.
Big Ticket and CBS transferred the Judge Judy library to Sheindlin during 2015 negotiations for more episodes of the hit series only to transfer it back to CBS in 2017 for more than $95 million. Kaye Switzer and the Sandi Spreckman Trust sued, claiming they should have been paid at least $4.75 million from the transaction.
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In 1995, Switzer and Spreckman entered into a contract with Big Ticket to develop the pilot for Judge Judy. They say they are entitled to compensation for the life of the series even though they no longer produce it. They reference language in their agreement that any sale would be made subject to the rights of participants, including them.
The case, filed in 2018, was set to go to trial on June 6. Attorneys representing Switzer and Spreckman did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether they plan to appeal Escalante’s ruling siding with the defense on summary judgment, which effectively ends the case.
CBS maintained throughout the litigation that there was essentially never any sale of the rights or transfer of copyright ownership to any episode of Judge Judy to begin with, meaning there are no profits that Switzer and Spreckman are entitled to share in.
The case turned on how CBS documented the transaction.
During a hearing in February, the judge appeared to agree with the network that no sale of the library ever occurred.
“There’s nothing illogical about the way the documentation is done,” Escalante told plaintiffs’ attorneys. “I can see there being argument about the legal effect and what it means, but it seems like almost an elegant way to document the transaction even if there were two sales. It’s clean.”
There have been multiple lawsuits over profits from the hit series. In Auguest 2020, Rebel Entertainment sued Sheindlin and CBS for its share of the $95 million library sale in an identical case.
Sheindlin in 2021 departed CBS for another courtroom reality series, Judy Justice, at IMDb TV.
CBS declined to comment. Switzer and the Spreckman trust could not immediately be reached for comment.
