RKO Radio Pictures, Inc. v. Jarrico

DORAN, J.

This is an appeal from the judgment in an action for declaratory relief.

The action herein results from a controversy as to the rights of the parties according to the terms of an agreement between appellant and respondent. As recited in respondent’s brief, “In 1951 respondent entered into a written contract with defendant-appellant (hereinafter referred to as appellant), Paul Jarrico, a motion picture screen writer, whereby it hired appellant to prepare a screen play for a motion picture property which it owned entitled ‘The Las Yegas Story.’

“The written contract between appellant and respondent recited in part that an essential consideration of the contract was the popularity and good reputation of appellant with the public. Further, appellant agreed that during the production and distribution of the motion picture he would conduct himself with due regard to public conventions and morals and would not do anything which would tend to degrade him or bring him into public disgrace, obloquy, ill will or ridicule.

“The contract also provided that, on condition that appellant performed all the covenants and conditions imposed upon him, he would receive certain credit for screen authorship as determined by what was called the Basic Agreement between respondent and the Screen Writers Guild, a union of screen writers.

“Thereafter, appellant was subpoenaed to appear before the House Committee on Un-American Activities. While he was in attendance at a hearing of the Committee, but before he himself took the witness stand, a longtime associate of Ms named appellant as a Communist and an active member of the Communist Party. The associate further stated, among other things, that he had asked appellant to assure him that, in the event of a war between Russia and the United States, appellant would do nothing to help Russia, but appellant refused such assurance.

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“Appellant was then called to the witness stand. He failed to deny the charges made against him, and refused to answer questions as to whether or not he was a member of the Communist Party on the ground that his answer might tend to incriminate him.

“The testimony, both of the witness against the appellant and of the appellant himself, was widely disseminated throughout the United States in newspapers, magazines, and by radio broadcasts.