The Booker Huffman (aka former pro wrestler Booker T) lawsuit against Activision for the alleged use of his likeness in the Call of Duty video game continues in Federal Court in Texas and Activision is now on the offensive as it is seeking other licensing agreements the former wrestler entered into.
In court filings earlier this month, Activision filed a Motion to Compel documents allegedly in possession of Booker T. The center of this discovery dispute is a request from the defendants that Booker T produce documents related to Plaintiff’s licensing of his own likeness for other video games. The key information sought by Activision were “payments Plaintiff received for licensing his likeness.”
Booker T supplied Activision with one responsive document entitled “Redacted 2017 Loan-Out Agreement.” However, the key information regarding payments were redacted. Despite requesting clarification on this, Booker T’s attorneys maintained that there were no other documents.
Activision claimed that based on the wrestler’s deposition, he had royalty checks from WWE, WCW and TNA Wrestling. However, Booker T’s attorneys did not produce these. And, the sole document did not produce want they need.
Notably, Activision attempted to obtain the contract from the WWE but the promotion denied the request citing that they could obtain the document from Huffman. In all likelihood, the WWE likely cited confidentiality issues and the fact that they were not obligated to submit the information since Huffman claimed that he had the document at issue.
Payout Perspective:
Huffman survived a motion to dismiss his case and Activision is moving at earnest with discovery in order to try to dismiss this via summary judgment motion. Essentially claiming that Huffman does not have sufficient evidence satisfying a claim for infringement of the “GI Bro” character Huffman created. The aggressive approach in obtaining this information infers that they want any information and/or claims the former wrestler may have in his possession. The actual document that Activision seeks is unlikely to produce pertinent information to the actual claim by Huffman, but it seems like they want to create doubt that Huffman has a legal dispute here. Activision will claim that the payments received for other video games will create a baseline for the alleged damages in this case. But, this seems like an exploration of a theory that has no basis at this point.
Proving someone has a document when they might not be in possession of it is a hard argument to prove to a court. If Huffman claims he doesn’t have an unredacted document and Activision cannot obtain it through another source the only option for it is to argue that the former wrestler cannot prove his damages through his prior licensing agreements.
MPO will continue to follow.
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