Billion-Dollar 'Titanic' Case Motion to Dismiss Denied

A United States District Court judge has denied a request by Paramount Pictures to dismiss a copyright infringement case filed by Princess Samantha Kennedy of Imperial Beach, court documents released Sept. 5 said.

Kennedy claims in hand-written court documents that the movie's plot was stolen from her autobiography My Daddy Was a Whistleblower, stories from her family history and a screenplay titled Missing Pieces.

Kennedy to prove her unpublished work was stolen, among them that her father was Leonardo DiCaprio's character Jack.

Particular scenes were also taken, Kennedy said, like a poker game played where DiCaprio's character wins a ticket to board the ship, and drawing DiCaprio's character drawing Kate Winslett's character Rose.

If she wins, Kennedy wants all copies of the movie destroyed, and to be awarded all money made by the movie, or at least $3 billion.

The second highest grossing film ever, according to IMDB.com Titanic made $1.8 billion in worldwide box office sales alone after its premiere in 1997. Titanic 3D was released in April.

Judge William Hayes granted Kennedy 60 days to file additional charges in the case against Paramount.

Paramount's legal team may request another motion to dismiss after new charges are received.

After the case was originally filed Feb. 10, Kennedy and Paramount spent part of the summer going back and forth with legal motions.

On July 12, lawyers from the firm Caldwell Leslie and Proctor who were hired by Paramount filed a motion to dismiss, stating that Kennedy "fails to allege copying of protected elements," among several other arguments.

In a declaration that accompanies the motion to dismiss from Paramount's Executive Vice President in charge of litigation Karen Magid, she states that the company has had no interaction with the company in the past.

The only record of correspondence Magid said is a letter from Kennedy to Paramount's parent company Viacom written in 2005. In the letter, Kennedy accuses the company of stealing her writing for the movies Forrest Gump and Titanic.

Kennedy stated in her original claim filed with the court in February and that she had only seen the movie within the past year.