Page 49 - RICHERT VS. SORKIN THEFT OF THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT AND THE WEST WING

Mr. Bill Richert November 6, 1995 Page 2
but we felt that acknowledging her past efforts would avoid. controversy, please wildwood and universal, and. be a fair and appropriate gesture. After alr, when you'd been fulry paid for your efforts on THE PRESIDENT ELOPES years d9o, she received only a modest development fee.
The rest of your letter mischaracterizes the facts as we know them or states your conclusions about what you think Rob Reiner or Aaron Sorkin may have done:
o Aaron sorkin and Rob Reiner are not u-ars. The bottom line is that neither of them read any of the previous PRESIDENT
ELOPES material, and they are perfectry willing to so testify.
o Yourre simply mistaken, if not purposely stepping outsid.e the bounds of ethicar advocacy, to claim that Airon sortin "testified... that he had no knowledge of earlier screenpldYS, the re-writes by other writersr or Robert Red.fordts remembered scenes" from your scrj-pt and its many rewrites.
Entirely to the contrary -- Aaron, in his written statement to the Writers Guild, specifically stated. that Mr. Redford had told the basics of the story of THE PRESIDENT ELOPES to him affito Rob Reiner; Aaronrs response was that he simply was not interested in rewriting a script based. on that story. Ar1 agreed. that he'd start fresh, with a new story. rt was the wGA's emphatic, three- times stated conclusion that whatever coflrmon elements exist, they
donrt rise to a 1evel entitling you to credit.
what you're really complaining about is that a panel of wGA arbitrators, whose identity we don't even know, read every piece of your material, all the rewritersr, and Aaron sorkin'sr-aid came to the concrusion that Aaron,s work was so different -- you and Ms - Maltby to the contrary -- that Aaron ffis entitled to tne sole "written by" credit. you had three separate opportunities to prevent that conclusion. r understand trrat you ippeared at the wGArs preliminary hearing to argue your case, and. made your
arguments again at the actual cred.ii arbitration (remember, the production company has no such access). And then still again at
the wGA Policy Review Board - which g convened to.appeal the conclusion of your screenwriter coll@ues.
Your position seems to be that you don't care about the merits, that the wGA should have imposed some arbitrary rule in your favor anyway. The decision-makers at the preliminary heiring and the Policy Review Board., having heard you out, conctuaea to ltre contrary. And the d.etermi-nation by your colreagues in the main credit arbitration underscores how unfair imposition of that rule
would have been.
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