Opinion ID: 774852
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Infringement of the Right of Publicity

Text: 35 The district court dismissed, on its own motion, Cusano's claim for infringement of the right of publicity, on the ground that Cusano admitted that the claim was based on pre-bankruptcy facts and transactions and thus his standing to pursue the claim had to first be resolved by the bankruptcy court. We do not decide whether the district court erred in holding that Cusano should have scheduled his rights and interests in all photographs taken of him pre-bankruptcy, because we affirm on a separate ground--namely, that the statute of limitations bars this claim. 36 The subject of this claim is the book KISStory, published in January 1995. Under the single-publication rule, limitations began to run at that time. The statute of limitations for infringement of the right of publicity in California is two years. See Cal. Code Civ. Proc. § 339; Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, 25 Cal. 3d 813, 854 (1979) (dissenting opinion) (noting that neither party on appeal challenged trial court's determination of two-year statute of limitations for infringement of right of publicity). Cusano did not commence the present action until July 1997, well after the two-year statute of limitations had run. For the same reasons discussed above with respect to Cusano's defamation claim, neither the rule of discovery nor any exception to the Uniform Single Publication Rule saves this claim. It is time-barred.