Judge Rules in Favor of Meyer in Plagiarism Case

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 12/3/2009

A judge has ruled in favor in Stephenie Meyer and Hachette Book Group, dismissing Jordan Scott’s claim of copyright infringement. Scott had accused Meyer of plagiarism.

The Honorable Otis D. Wright II of the U.S. District Court said in his ruling that Breaking Dawn and Scott’s 2006 vampire novel The Nocturne (Yorkshire Publishing Group, 2009) have little in common and that the “characters in the two works are vastly different.” The decision scolded Scott for “the deceptive presentation of the alleged similarities” and noted that she “has twice manipulated aspects of the subject works in order to create the appearance of similarity.”

Scott filed the suit in federal court in California in August of this year. At the time, Hachette called the suit a “publicity stunt to further Ms. Scott’s career,” and said it expected the court would dismiss it, according to Reuters. Following Wright’s ruling, a Hachette spokesperson said today, “While an attempt to ride on someone else’s success may not be surprising, it is encouraging that the courts and the public are not so easily misled.”