A Tale of Two Humans

Writer/Director Joseph Nobile alleged that Margot Louise Watts, a/k/a M. L. Stedman, knowingly and willfully copied, plagiarized, pirated and misappropriated expressive content from his screenplay entitled The Rootcutter, subsequently re-titled A Tale of Two Humans, originally copyrighted in 2001. On January 26, 2017, Nobile filed suit against Watts, Simon & Schuster et al. In spite of defendant's admission of having access and probative copying of plaintiff's screenplay, Judge Katherine Forrest of the US District Court in New York ruled against Nobile on October 16, 2017 and subsequently granted the defendants' motions for Attorney Fees "due to the objective unreasonableness of plaintiff's claims, and to dissuade other would-be plaintiffs from filing similarly baseless suits...". Nobile appealed and on September 21, 2018, the 2nd US Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the original decisions.