High Five for Borat!

By Anonymous

Donn Zaretsky's Art Law Blog has an interesting piece on litigation surrounding Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Two of the "participants" in the movie, a couple of inebriated college students from South Carolina, are bringing suit in Los Angeles Superior Court. You can view the complaint here. Incidentally, whoever drafted it needs to work on their spelling. The students, who might I say looked like complete idiots, are alleging that the production crew got them drunk, and then took advantage of their state. They were paid $200 for their participation. They are asserting causes of action for fraud, rescission of contract, false light, appropriation of false likeness, and negligent infliction of emotional distress.

Borat is a smart cookie, and he made the participants in the film sign a consent form, which Slate has made available here. However, there are a couple of problems with it.

First, the production company is fictional. Though there is a merger clause, there might be a case for fraud, as the participants were lied to, and were apparently given copious amounts of bud lite. Its unlikely that a California court would look very favorably on an argument that the plaintiffs were inebriated, as American courts are generally loathe to nullify contracts on that basis. Second, they were told the documentary would only be shown abroad. In the end, they didn't seem to have been forced to say anything, and its not the kind of thing I personally haven't heard a million times from inebriated fraternity brothers from South Carolina.

Anyway, have a look at the complaint, and let's strike up a discussion regarding whether these two guys have a legal leg to stand on. I do not think they have much of a case. In my view, its not totally frivolous. But the outcome these two poor South Carolinians are hoping for is to get a nice clean settlement. It's no coincidence either that the suit was filed after the movie's opening weekend. The US legal system is much different from the rest of the world in that the loser in an action seldom is required to pay the legal fees of the other party. Incidentally, Borat has earned $111 million worldwide.

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