MUNEEFA ABDULLAH V. WALT DISNEY COMPANY, No. 16-55888 (9th Cir. 2018)

Annotate this Case

Download PDF

NOT FOR PUBLICATION UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FILED MAR 8 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT MUNEEFA ABDULLAH, Plaintiff-Appellant, No. U.S. COURT OF APPEALS 16-55888 D.C. No. 2:15-cv-09581-SVW-JPR v. THE WALT DISNEY COMPANY; et al., MEMORANDUM* Defendants-Appellees. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California Stephen V. Wilson, District Judge, Presiding Submitted February 8, 2018** Pasadena, California Before: CALLAHAN and NGUYEN, Circuit Judges, and BATAILLON,*** District Judge. Muneefa Abdullah appeals from the district court’s judgment in favor of The Walt Disney Company in this copyright action. We have jurisdiction pursuant to * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The panel unanimously concludes this case is suitable for decision without oral argument. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2). *** The Honorable Joseph F. Bataillon, United States District Judge for the District of Nebraska, sitting by designation. 28 U.S.C. § 1291. After a careful examination of each alleged similarity between The Snow Princess and Frozen, the district court concluded that the two works are not substantially similar under the extrinsic test as a matter of law. We agree and therefore affirm for the reasons stated by the district court in its well-reasoned decision granting The Walt Disney Company’s motion to dismiss.1 AFFIRMED. 1 For the first time on appeal, Abdullah contends that the witch is the princess’s subconscious. Even if that were apparent from the text of The Snow Princess, which it is not, the outcome is the same because it is an entirely different expression of the idea of a princess with ice powers than presented in Frozen. See Funky Films, Inc. v. Time Warner Entm’t Co., 462 F.3d 1072, 1078–79 (9th Cir. 2006) (rejecting appellants’ “attempt to link up” the main characters in the works because the expression of the generic traits of those characters was different). 2

Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.