Wednesday, January 21, 2026
Page 3
Court of Appeal:
Action Alleging ‘Idea Theft’ by Tucker Carlson Rightly Axed
Opinion Says Plaintiff’s Allegations That He Pitched Stories to Former Fox News Host Based on ‘Industry Practice’ to Pay Were Insufficient to Establish Implied Contract
By Kimber Cooley, associate editor
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STEVEN GREER |
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Div. Five of this district’s Court of Appeal has held that a plaintiff, who identifies himself as an author and medical doctor who has been a featured guest on multiple news platforms, failed to state a claim for breach of an implied-in-fact contract against right-wing commentator Tucker Carlson based on assertions that the former Fox News host stole ideas that the litigant says were pitched to him with the expectation of payment.
Saying that he regularly “blasts” story ideas to members of the media, including Carlson, the plaintiff asserted that the messages are standard “industry pitches” made with anticipated remuneration if a party chooses to use them, citing the 1956 California Supreme Court decision in Desny v. Wilder, in which the court explained that, while ideas are generally not protectable, conveying one with the expectation of payment can lead to an implied contract.
In an unpublished opinion filed Friday and written by Justice Carl H. Moor, the court rejected the plaintiff’s so-called “Desny cause of action,” declaring:
“The allegations reveal that [the plaintiff] voluntarily provided content that he considered valuable and then hoped or expected some obligation would ensue. His unilateral expectation of payment or attribution does not satisfy the requirement of mutual assent to a contract.”
Asserting claims for breach of contract and violation of California’s Unfair Competition Law (“UCL”), codified at Business & Professions Code §17200 et seq., was Steven Greer, who had previously sued Carlson’s former network, Fox News Media, in federal court based on similar allegations that the company misappropriated his “hot news” prompts.
Earlier Litigation
Chief Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York granted a defense motion to dismiss, without leave to amend, in September 2022, concluding that the U.S. Copyright Act preempts Greer’s state law unfair competition claim and that he had waived a cause of action for breach of an implied contract. Swain declared that any amendment would be futile due to a lack of any assertions that the company agreed to compensate Greer.
Undeterred, Greer filed a complaint against Carlson in state court in May 2023. In the operative pleading, he asserted that he added Carlson and his producers to his list of email recipients in 2017 with the expectation that they would comply with a purported “industry standard” to pay for ideas for stories.
He claimed that he sent “warnings” to Carlson, beginning in 2019, that he expected payment relating to segments in which he alleged the host used his tips, citing a purported July 2019 email in which he contended that Jeffrey Epstein’s wealth was derived solely from Les Wexner, the billionaire co-founder of Bath & Body Works Inc. According to the plaintiff, the story was a prominent topic of Carlson’s show the following week.
He also said that the media personality stole ideas from his essay entitled, “Coronavirus is a New York problem, not a national problem,” when Carlson said on air, in April 2020, that the virus was concentrated in a small number of places in and around the city.
Misappropriation Persisted
Saying that the alleged misappropriation persisted after Carlson launched his own brand after being terminated from Fox, Greer asserted:
“Tucker Carlson is a serial plagiarist who has made a cable TV career out of repackaging content from others into a live show. He does not give credit to the original sources. This is his modus operandi and he cannot stop.”
In December 2024, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Lisa K. Sepe-Wiesenfeld sustained a demurrer without leave to amend, concluding that Carlson was in privity with Fox News for the purposes of the lawsuit and the claims were barred by the doctrines of res judicata and collateral estoppel based on the federal litigation. Yesterday’s decision, joined by Acting Presiding Justice Lamar Baker and Justice Dorothy C. Kim, affirms the ensuing defense judgment.
Moor wrote:
“Under Desny, to prevail on a claim for breach of an implied in-fact contract for idea submission, ‘plaintiffs must show (1) they clearly conditioned the submission of their ideas on an obligation to pay for any use of their ideas; (2) the defendants, knowing this condition before the plaintiffs disclosed the ideas, voluntarily accepted the submission of the ideas; and (3) the defendants found the ideas valuable and actually used them—that is, the defendants based their work substantially on the plaintiffs’ ideas, rather than on their own ideas or ideas from other sources.’ ”
Saying that Greer’s complaint “does not state a cause of action for an implied-in-fact contract” under Desny, the justice opined:
“There is no allegation that Carlson solicited any of the ideas alleged in the complaint as the basis of implied contract claims. Greer, on his own volition, added Carlson’s contact information to a mass email list and provided content that Carlson did not request from him. There is no allegation that Greer clearly stated in advance of providing any particular idea that he expected to be paid for use of that idea….In fact, there is no allegation that Carlson had an opportunity to refuse the ideas offered by Greer before they were offered.”
He added:
“The circumstances alleged in the complaint further reveal the lack of mutual assent to contract. After providing ideas to Carlson in 2019 and 2020, well outside of the statute of limitations…, Greer accused Carlson of plagiarism and filed a lawsuit against him in federal court….Carlson was clearly not agreeing to pay for the use of Greer’s unsolicited ideas….Greer simply continued to send unsolicited ideas to Carlson. In fact, in his reply brief, Greer admits that he continued to email ideas to Carlson to prove in writing that his work predated Carlson’s, because Greer anticipated theft of his ideas.”
Discerning no dispute that the UCL cause of action was derived from the alleged breach of contract, Moor remarked that “Greer has not…suggested how he could successfully amend to state a cause of action” and so “[t]he trial court properly sustained the demurrer without leave to amend and entered judgment in favor of Carlson.”
The case is Greer v. Carlson, B343596.
Carlson was initially named as a defendant in the federal litigation but was dismissed after it was discovered that both he and the plaintiff reside in Florida.
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