⚖️ Crichton estate wins appeal: The Pitt v ER suit heads to jury

A California appeals court has refused to throw out the Michael Crichton estate's lawsuit over The Pitt. In a unanimous opinion filed Wednesday, Nov 4, a three-judge panel denied Warner Bros. Television's appeal, according to The Guardian and Yahoo Entertainment, which cites NBC News. The sources read give the day of the ruling but no time. Showbiz411 identifies the court as the Second Appellate District, Division Three.

Who says what

"There are clear and numerous similarities between The Pitt and ER"

California Court of Appeal ruling, as quoted by The Guardian

The Guardian reports the court pointed to the shared emergency-room setting, ‘frequently incomprehensible’ medical jargon, overlapping crises and graphic depictions of injuries. The Daily Mail reports the ruling also cited junior doctors as characters. Yahoo Entertainment, citing NBC News, quotes the court saying where those similarities sit ‘on a ladder of abstraction protecting only the more specific expressions, is a matter of ‘degree.’’ It adds that the court said that, ‘making favorable inferences’ for the estate's side, ‘as we must’, the details ‘suffice for a prima facie case.’ In plain terms, the estate cleared a low bar. Nobody has ruled on whether anything was breached.

The studio and its co-defendants had argued for two years, per The Guardian, that these were ‘generic similarities’ common to ‘any dramatic story involving emergency room doctors’ and that it ‘cannot be that all shows set in an emergency room are derivative of ER’. The panel was not persuaded as to Warner Bros. Television. It did dismiss the claims against Wyle, Wells and Gemmill, finding no evidence that any of them knew they could violate Crichton's contractual rights by creating The Pitt, per The Guardian. The Daily Mail reports the same dismissals. Showbiz411 describes the court's explanation for separating them as long and complicated.

What the complaint claims

Sherri Crichton filed the suit in Los Angeles Superior Court in August 2024, on behalf of the John Michael Crichton Trust's Roadrunner JMTC, per Deadline. It claims breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and intentional interference with contractual relations. The estate demanded a jury. Its core claim is a ‘frozen rights’ provision in Crichton's ER contract. The New York Times reports the suit says the provision bars the studio from making sequels, remakes, spinoffs or other derivative productions without his consent. The suit says that after negotiating for nearly a year without a deal, Warner Bros. ‘simply moved the show from Chicago to Pittsburgh, rebranded it ‘The Pitt’ and has plowed ahead without any attribution or compensation for Crichton and his heirs.’ The estate seeks to restrain the show's production without its permission, plus compensation and punitive damages, per the Times. Deadline reports the suit puts ER's total gross at $3.2 billion.

"The Pitt is ER . It’s not like ER , it’s not kind of ER , it’s not sort of ER . It is ER complete with the same executive producer, writer, star, production companies, studio and network as the planned ER reboot."

The estate's complaint, as quoted by Deadline, August 2024

The response

Warner Bros. Television has not been quoted on this ruling in the reports read. The Guardian says it has contacted the studio. The studio's earlier denials are on record. In August 2024 it told the New York Times the suit was ‘baseless’, called The Pitt a ‘new and original show’ and said it would ‘vigorously defend against these meritless claims’. In a November 2024 filing, reported by Deadline, it said: ‘The Pitt is a completely different show from ER.’ It argued the overlaps are generic to medical dramas.

Wyle, Wells and Gemmill have not been quoted on the ruling in the reports read. Wyle told Variety in April 2025 that he felt ‘profoundly sad and disappointed’ and that the team pivoted from an ER revival ‘not for litigious reasons’. On Amy Poehler's Good Hang podcast he said, per The Guardian: ‘We were going to start down an ER reboot road that didn’t come to pass.’ Both facts are on record. The question for a jury is whether one led to the other.

"I am deeply gratified by the Court of Appeal decision and look forward to discovery and to our case, which affects writers, creators and their families and estates, being presented to a jury"

Sherri Crichton, told Variety, as quoted by The Guardian

What happens next

The Guardian reports the suit will now go to a jury trial in Los Angeles unless the parties reach a settlement, and its standfirst puts that trial in 2027. Yahoo Entertainment says the case now proceeds in the trial court. Sherri Crichton says discovery comes first. The reports read give no exact trial date, no word on any further appeal by the studio, and no sign of settlement talks. Showbiz411 offers its own guess that the parties will either settle or end up in court.

Backstory

This is the second time the estate has cleared a hurdle. Judge Wendy Chang denied Warner Bros.' anti-SLAPP motion (a California law against gag suits) in February 2025, finding the estate's evidence met the ‘minimal merit standard’ for a prima facie case that The Pitt is derived from ER, per NBC News. The Pitt premiered in January 2025, five months after the suit was filed, per The Guardian.

Mr Scandal notes that Crichton knew similarity fights from the other side. A federal jury cleared him and Steven Spielberg in a ‘Twister’ script suit in January 1998, per the Los Angeles Times, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed in 1985 that no reasonable jury could find his film Coma substantially similar to a plaintiff's screen treatment.

As of Nov 5, 8:15 PM ET, the appeals panel's denial of Warner Bros. Television's appeal and its dismissal of the claims against Wyle, Wells and Gemmill are confirmed by The Guardian and Yahoo Entertainment, and the case goes back to the trial court. Still pending: discovery, any settlement, a trial date (the Guardian's standfirst says 2027) and any Warner Bros. Television response to the ruling, which none of the reports read includes.