Fans have spent the last twenty-five years watching Judge Judy Sheindlin make all the decisions inside her TV courtroom, but unfortunately for the beloved legal lady, she doesn’t have quite as much say in legal matters outside her courtroom.
Less than six months after CBS and Rebel Entertainment Partners settled their long-running legal battle over big bucks in missed contractually obliged payments from the show that has aired for more than two decades, a new lawsuit is on the docket.
The highly paid TV star has been locked in an extended and pretty mean-spirited lawsuit with Rebel Entertainment Partners over profit participation for her show’s library rights sold to CBS for $95,000,000.
Rebel is now suing former Manhattan family court judge Judy Sheindlin and a ViacomCBS division for more than $5 million over a seemingly sleight-of-hand $95 million sale of the show’s rich library.
The new lawsuit targets the library rights of the courtroom show. Judge Judy bought the rights from CBS in 2015 just to turn around and sold them back to CBS for a huge profit two years later in 2017
Here’s what Sheindlin said of Rebel president Richard Lawrence:
“I have not seen the complaint and can therefore only comment on what I have read, which suggests that I am being sued for ‘breach of contract.’ If that is the basis of Mr. Lawrence’s lawsuit, here is my challenge: If Mr. Lawrence can produce a contract, signed by Mr. Lawrence and me on the same page, at any time in history from the beginning of time, I will toast that contract, smear it with cream cheese and eat it on national television.”
More details of this story from AWM:
Rebel argues that CBS, under the leadership of its now-disgraced former boss, Les Moonves, “seriously underestimated” how much Judge Judy the show was worth when they sold the rights of it to Sheindlin in 2015.
Because she “understood she was now sitting on a gold mine,” Sheindlin hired Barron International Group to help her market the library to potential buyers for a price of about $200 million, which made CBS interested once again.
According to the lawsuit, Moonves had “blundered” and tried to buy back the Judge Judy library to “avoid embarrassment over his colossal mismanagement.
“Moonves knew that he would look like an incompetent buffoon if he had to explain to the CBS Board of Directors that he had essentially sold the Judge Judy catalog for a pittance less than two years prior, but was now proposing to buy it back for tens of millions of dollars,” the lawsuit claimed.
According to the latest update of this court battle from PopCuture reports, Judge Judy just earned a big legal victory in a $95 million episode library lawsuit she’s been fighting since 2020.
According to Deadline, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kristin S. Escalante has granted a dismissal motion brought forth by Judy Sheindlin, Big Ticket Pictures and CBS. The suit was filed two years ago by Rebel Entertainment Partners who have been fighting for “interest” in what they claim was a $5 million sale of the show’s episodes.
“Defendants Big Ticket Pictures, Inc.; CBS Studios, Inc.; CBS Corporation; Judith Sheindlin; and Her Honor, Inc. are entitled to judgment in their favor on all causes of action as fully reflected in the Order,” Judge Escalante wrote in her ruling. “which is signed and filed on this date and incorporated herein by reference to the Court file.”
The full ruling can be viewed here. However, Rebal — represented by the law firm of Freedman + Taitelman — has another course of action they intend to seek. “The judge found that despite CBS’s consistent denial that a sale of the Judge Judy library had never occurred, CBS’s own financial records showed that not to be the case,” Attorney Bryan Freedman told Deadline in an exclusive statement. “Given that fact this matter will be decided in the court of appeal. We are confident that the court of appeal will rule in our client’s favor.”