A Los Angeles jury decided on March 10, 2025, that Disney did not steal the idea for its 2016 animated movie Moana. The decision came after a two-week trial where Buck Woodall, a writer and animator, claimed the film was based on his story Bucky the Surfer Boy.

The jury, made up of six women and two men, took less than three hours to rule that Disney creators John Musker and Ron Clements never saw Woodall’s work. This ended a five-year legal battle over the first Moana film, but Woodall has another case ongoing about the 2024 sequel, Moana 2.

Disney celebrated the victory. “We are incredibly proud of the collective work that went into the making of Moana and are pleased that the jury found it had nothing to do with Plaintiff’s works,” a company spokesperson said after the verdict in Judge Alka Sagar’s courtroom.

The trial showed that Musker and Clements,...