A federal appeals court on Thursday affirmed a jury verdict clearing Apple Inc. and director M. Night Shyamalan of copyright infringement claims tied to the Apple TV series “Servant.”
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected filmmaker Francesca Gregorini’s challenges to the 2025 trial outcome. Gregorini had alleged that the first three episodes of “Servant,” which premiered in 2019 and ran through 2023, copied substantial elements from her 2013 independent film “The Truth About Emanuel.”
Both works center on a mother grieving the death of her infant who treats a realistic baby doll as if it were alive, along with a young nanny drawn into the delusion. Gregorini, who wrote and directed her film, sued Apple, Shyamalan, series creator Tony Basgallop, and others in 2020, seeking as much as $81 million in damages and describing the show as a “brazen” or “wholesale” copy.
A district judge initially dismissed the case in 2020, finding the works insufficiently similar as a matter of law and ordering Gregorini to pay more than $160,000 in attorneys’ fees. The Ninth Circuit reversed that dismissal in 2022, holding that reasonable minds could differ on substantial similarity and that discovery and expert testimony were warranted before resolving the claims.
The case proceeded to a jury trial in January 2025 in Riverside, California, before U.S. District Judge Sunshine S. Sykes. After roughly a week of testimony — including from Shyamalan, who denied any knowledge of Gregorini’s film — the jury unanimously found that none of the defendants had access to “The Truth About Emanuel.” Because copyright infringement requires proof of copying, and access is a prerequisite, the jury did not need to decide whether the works were substantially similar or whether “Servant” was independently created.
Gregorini’s film had limited commercial reach. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at smaller festivals but grossed under $4,000 at the box office and had only a brief theatrical run. Defendants, including Shyamalan and Basgallop, testified that they had never seen or heard of it before the lawsuit and that the series was developed independently. Gregorini argued access through possible industry channels or broader dissemination via festivals and limited digital availability, but the jury was not persuaded.
On appeal, Gregorini challenged the jury instructions and the trial court’s handling of a jury question. The Ninth Circuit, in an unsigned opinion, held that the district court did not err by using the circuit’s model instructions on proving access without enumerating every possible method of showing it. The appeals court also rejected her argument that the judge improperly failed to define “widely disseminated” in response to a jury question, instead allowing the parties to offer competing explanations.
MacDailyNews Take: This latest – and final – ruling solidifies the defense victory and ends the multi-year litigation for Apple and Shyamalan. “Servant,” an executive-produced series from Shyamalan’s Blinding Edge Pictures, became one of Apple TV’s early original hits.
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