Oprah Winfrey Files Motion to Have Greenleaf Lawsuit Dismissed

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Oprah Winfrey wants Greenleaf lawsuit dismissed!

Oprah, and the team behind her hit church drama Greenleaf, has asked a California court to dismiss a copyright lawsuit filed against them earlier this year.

Greenleaf OWN

In the court filings, OWN’s attorneys argues that the lawsuit is frivolous:

This is a frivolous lawsuit brought by plaintiffs who either do not understand copyright law or who are pursuing it notwithstanding its manifest lack of merit.

Back in April, Pastor Lester Eugene Barrie and Shannan Lynette Wynn, filed a lawsuit alleging that Greenleaf featured elements and ideas taken from their project,  “Justice & Glory.”

Wynn claims they met with Oprah’s team at OWN in fall 2014 and pitched their idea … and got great feedback.

According to the docs … they were lured by OWN for more ideas and versions of their pitch, but eventually got cut off. Years later, they claim “Greenleaf” premiered and featured the exact same characters and storylines from their original pitch.

In their Motion to Dismiss obtained by The Wrap, Winfrey’s team argues that the only similarities in the two series is that they “involve a church leader and his family.”

“Justice & Glory is a story about a young, white, atheist, promiscuous U.S. Senator investigating the world-famous leader of an international mega-church, who may have been involved in the murder of the Senator’s mother. Greenleaf is about a single mother returning to her father’s local, African-American ministry in Memphis, Tennessee after the suicide of her sister, and who seeks to prove that her uncle is a serial child molester,” the motion states.

“Plaintiffs do not understand (or intentionally disregard) that general plot ideas (a mysterious death, a closeted gay character) and familiar stock themes (e.g., a corrupt church, infidelity, good versus evil) are not protected. Superficial similarities and abstract commonalities do not constitute infringement. The differences between Plaintiffs’ treatments and Greenleaf are profound, palpable, and immediately recognizable even upon a cursory review of the works. There is a complete absence of expressive similarity. It is not even a close case.”

Winfrey’s attorneys argue that the lawsuit has no merit.