In a decision dated February 19, 2009, Justice Kitzes dismissed plaintiffs’ causes of action for breach of contract and fraud, stemming from an agreement with defendant Shoot the Moon Productions in which, in consideration for $2,000, plaintiffs granted Shoot the Moon an option to purchase motion picture, television, and radio rights to their life stories. The court dismissed the breach of contract claim finding that it was refuted by plaintiffs’ admissions and documentary evidence submitted by defendants that Shoot the Moon exercised its option to purchase plaintiffs’ life stories and paid plaintiffs the amount stated under the terms of the agreement. The court further ruled that to the extent plaintiffs argued that Shoot the Moon was required to separately exercise its options and tender additional payment to obtain the rights to a feature film following the documentary, that argument failed due to the clear and unambiguous contract, which did not call for any additional payment until fifteen days after the principal photography of a subsequent production was completed. The court also dismissed the fraud claim, finding that: (1) plaintiffs could not, as a mater of law, rely on an alleged oral misrepresentation, which conflicted with the clear provisions of the written agreement; and (2) one plaintiff’s inability to read the contract due to blindness did not establish fraud by the defendants, but rather, the plaintiff’s own negligence where there was no allegation that the contract was misread or misrepresented to her.
Finally, the court dismissed plaintiffs’ cause of action for legal malpractice asserted against the attorneys who represented Shoot the Moon in preparing and drafting the contract with plaintiffs, on the grounds that absent an attorney-client privilege, plaintiffs cannot state a claim for legal malpractice against defendants’ attorneys as no separate duty to plaintiffs was owed.