Mickey Mouse vs. Winnie the Pooh

By Stephen M. Silverman

11/21/1997 at 12:00 AM EST

The Walt Disney Company lost a round in Los Angeles Superior Court in its 8-year-old litigation with Stephen Slesinger Inc., which licenses the late author A.A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh" characters to the studio. At issue is a question over royalty payments. Variety reports that the judge told the jury that not only is Slesinger entitled to monetary sanctions, but that Disney willfully suppressed evidence in the case. Hundreds of millions of dollars are said to be at stake.