Harcourt v. Goldwater (1982)
Main issue: Satisfactory manuscript
Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, who had run for President in 1964, and Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, a book publisher, signed a contract for his memoirs with Stephen Shadegg as his ghost-writer. Goldwater was paid $65,000 as an advance against royalties. During the preparation of the manuscript, Goldwater's editor at Harcourt gave no indication that it was dissatisfied. However, Harcourt eventually rejected the manuscript because it contained no "revelatory material." Goldwater then entered a contract with another house, William Morrow, to publish the work. Morrow brought out the book and considered it a success. At that point, Harcourt sued to get the $65,000 advance back. Harcourt said it had doubts about Shadegg from early on. Goldwater said he had no inkling that Harcourt wanted Shadegg replaced. The judge ruled that there is an implied obligation in a book contract for the publisher to engage in "appropriate editorial work with the author." Without feedback, an author "is virtually prevented from performing under the contract." The court-reinforced lesson from Goldwater is that a publisher is obliged to provide editorial guidance to an author. Without such guidance, terminating a contract represents "bad faith" and cannot be sustained.
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532 F. Supp. 619 (S.D.N.Y. 1982).
Mark Fowler. "The 'Satisfactory Manuscript' Clause in Book Publishing Contracts," Columbia-VLA Journal of Law and the Arts, Volume 10 (1985), Pages 119-152. |
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