Doubleday v. Curtis (1985)
Main issue: Satisfactory manuscript
The actor Tony Curtis and the publishing house Doubleday entered an agreement in 1981 for a novel. Doubleday gave Curtis $50,000 as an advance against royalties. Over the next four years Curtis received one favorable letter from an editor, nothing more. No revisions were suggested, and no editorial assistance was offered. When Curtis submitted the final manuscript, Doubleday called it unsuitable and asked for its $50,000 advance back. In an office memo, the editor called it "truly a terrible book." Curtis sued, charging he had received insufficient editorial assistance. The judge ruled for Curtis. Doubleday appealed, and the appellate court found for Doubleday. In an author-unfriendly ruling, the appellate court said an author must assume some risk in choosing a skillful publisher and editor. The court said it would be "an unwarranted intrusion into the editorial process" for the courts to assess the quality of support that a publisher provides. The spirit of the ruling was counter to that in Dell v. Whedon only a year earlier, in which a judge said a publisher must provide editorial guidance.
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763 E. 2d 495 (2d Cir.), cert. dismissed, 106 S.Ct 282 (1985).
Calvin R. House. "Good Faith Rejection and Specific Performance in Publishing Contracts," Brooklyn Law Review, Volume 51 (Fall 1984), Pages 95-145. |
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