LITIGATION
In the case of Lee v. Disney we considered two separate legal issues: breach of contract and invasion of privacy. To determine whether breach of contract has occurred we looked to the terms of the contract to establish the parties’ obligations and applied general legal practices which the court will use to make a judgment in this case.
The court will apply the plain meaning rule to interpret the contract between Disney and Ms. Lee. This means that the terms must be determined from the face of the instrument, the written document, alone. Generally, if a contract’s words appear to be clear and unambiguous the court will not consider any evidence not contained in the document itself. As in this case, there may be issues which are not mentioned or are ambiguously addressed in the contract. In order for courts to address ambiguity in contracts they must look at the intent of the parties at the time the contract was created. However, courts do not consider the fairness of the terms and simply look to satisfy the reasonable expectations of the parties by interpreting intent. “A contract extends only to those things concerning which it appears the parties intended to contract.”
In this case we found specific contractual language that speaks to Disney’s defense. Per the contract, Disney owns the right to distribute the movie to theatres and broadcasting companies in domestic and foreign markets. The contract also gives Disney the rights to distribute the film through “any other technology yet to be invented.” Disney will look to this clause to prove the right to distribute the film through videocassettes, which were introduced more than two decades after the formation of the contract.
Disney’s evidence regarding their practice not to allo ...