Court rejects MGA's mistrial motion
By Staff -- Playthings, 8/5/2008 6:41:00 AM
RIVERSIDE, Calif.—The judge overseeing Mattel’s lawsuit against MGA Entertainment over rights to the Bratz dolls yesterday rejected MGA’s request for mistrial in the wake of a juror’s comment about the ethnicity of MGA chief executive Isaac Larian.
According to court documents, jurors reported to the judge that one member of the panel stated that her husband found Iranians “stubborn, rude, stingy, are thieves and have stolen other person’s ideas.”
Isaac Larian is a Jewish Iranian.
In court yesterday, U.S. District Judge Stephen Larson said, "There is no question that there was a grossly inappropriate statement made," but according to the Los Angeles Times, the comments came after the jurors had already made decisions on the case's key points.
In a statement, Mattel said: “Mattel believes that to declare a mistrial based on juror No. 8's comment—an incident that was resoundingly condemned by the remaining jurors and reported by them to the court—would be to penalize the jury for doing the right thing."
MGA plans to appeal the decision.
As a result of the judge’s ruling, nine jurors instead of 10 will be empowered to determine what the ramifications will be of the unanimous decision on July 17 that Bratz’s designer, Carter Bryant, was still under contract to Mattel when he created the Bratz dolls.
