Digging Up Disney

Rebekah A. Hall

A fierce fight over royalities from the sale of Winnie the Pooh products has led some to desperately dig in the dump.

Stephen Slesinger Inc. (SSI), which acquired the U.S. rights to Pooh from the storybook author A.A. Milne in the 1930s, is brawling with The Walt Disney Co. on grounds that Disney shortchanged the company royalties during a 1983 business deal.

Recently, Disney asked a Los Angeles Superior Court to dismiss the 12-year-old lawsuit, citing “pervasive misconduct and illegal activities” by SSI. According to the animation mogul, SSI hired an ex-convict to trespass on Disney's and its waste disposal contractors' property to recover documents.

However, the court did not dismiss the case and will send it to trial later this year. Apparently, Disney knowingly destroyed thousands of documents relevant to the case, some of which were marked, “Winnie the Pooh Legal Problems.”

Of course, this explains why SSI was up to its knees in Disney's garbage.
Source: Yahoo! News