Court lets ruling stand

Lawyer loses bid to sue Grisham over copyright

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Lawyer-novelist John Grisham won't have to plead his case before the Supreme Court. The court Monday declined to hear a copyright infringement case alleging his novel "The Chamber" copied the non-fiction work of another author.

Polly Nelson, also a lawyer, claimed Grisham had taken elements and characters from her book "Defending the Devil," a narrative of the defense of serial killer Ted Bundy.

Nelson's book was published in 1994, a few weeks after "The Chamber" was. But her lawsuit alleged that Grisham, through his publisher, had access to a pre-publication draft of her book.

U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth in Washington ruled in 1996 that Nelson's lawsuit was "meritless" because the books were not substantially similar.

Related stories:

• Grisham's plagiarism suit dismissed

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