The Ninth Circuit rejects director Francesca Gregorini’s challenges to jury instructions and the handling of a jury question, leaving the verdict in place.
The US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has upheld the copyright verdict in favour of Apple and filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan over Servant, according to 9to5Mac’s account of Reuters. The court rejected director Francesca Gregorini’s two challenges to how the trial was conducted.
Gregorini sued Apple and Shyamalan shortly after the psychological thriller series premiered, alleging that it copied the plot of her 2013 film The Truth About Emanuel. She sought as much as $81 million in damages. Servant ran for four seasons and ended in 2023.
In January 2025, a jury unanimously ruled for Apple and Shyamalan. According to 9to5Mac, jurors found that Servant’s creators had not had access to Gregorini’s film before developing the series.
Gregorini’s first challenge concerned “widespread dissemination”—whether her film was sufficiently well known within the entertainment industry for Servant’s creators to have potentially encountered it. She argued that the jury needed more detailed instructions on that point.
According to 9to5Mac’s account of Reuters, the appeals court found that the instructions accurately reflected the applicable law. It held that the trial judge was not required to give a fuller definition of what it means for a work to be widely disseminated.
Gregorini also challenged the judge’s decision to accept the unanimous verdict before answering a question from jurors asking for clarification of the same term. The appeals court ruled that accepting the verdict without first answering that question was within the judge’s discretion.
The court’s reasons addressed the conduct of the trial, rather than making a new determination about creative similarity between the series and the film. Rejecting both challenges leaves the January 2025 verdict for Apple and Shyamalan in place.
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