A Touchy-Feely Oral Contract

By Matthew Belloni

We admit to being overly amused when the formality of the civil litigation process leads to inadvertent humor. So we'll understand if you don't chuckle as much as we did at this line from a complaint filed today in LA Superior Court. Screenwriter Ami Mann claims producer Tony Krantz ("24," "Felicity") hired her to write a screenplay based on the life of country singer Shelby Lynne and repudiated an oral contract to pay her $150,000:

On approximately June 24, 2008, Mann delivered to Krantz the detailed written story outline to Krantz (sic). Mann also began writing a first draft of the screenplay. Shortly thereafter, Krantz informed Mann that he was no longer "feeling" the story.

Well then, hard to argue with that. The full complaint is here, filed by Greg Aldisert at Santa Monica's Kinsella Weitzman firm.