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A new Twist in the case Judge overturns verdict in comic book character case
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- A St. Louis circuit judge has overturned a jury verdict awarding former St. Louis Blues enforcer Tony Twist $24.5 million for the unauthorized use of his name. In July, following a two-week trial, a jury found that artist Todd McFarlane based a character in his "Spawn" comic book series on Twist. The character, "Antonio Twistelli," is a vile, vulgar mobster. The real Twist said he never consented to McFarlane's use of his name. Tuesday, St. Louis Circuit Judge Robert H. Dierker Jr. ruled the jury's verdict came "against the manifest weight of the evidence." "No rational person could believe that the use of plaintiff's name as the nom de guerre of a swarthy mafioso in a comic book series, having absolutely nothing to do with hockey, either benefited defendants or injured plaintiff in any way, except perhaps in plaintiff's imagination," Dierker wrote. Twist's attorney, Robert Blitz, said his client plans to appeal. The judge, Blitz said, "feels his search for the truth and the facts of the case were better than that of the jury." Michael Kahn, the lawyer for McFarlane's comic book company, said Dierker "did what we have judges for, which is to look at the law and, regardless what the jury has done, apply the law." McFarlane could probably could resume using the "Twistelli" character under Dierker's ruling, said Edwin Akers, McFarlane's lawyer. Dierker did agree with jurors that McFarlane intentionally used Twist's name in creating the fictional "Twistelli" character. The artist admitting naming other characters after players with the Quebec Nordiques, Twist's team when the mob character was introduced. "It beggars credulity to accept that McFarlane's use of the name Tony Twist was a coincidence," Dierker wrote. But Dierker ruled that Twist's claim the "Twistelli" character cost him product endorsements is irrelevant. "The question is not whether the use of plaintiff's name caused injury, the question is whether the defendants intended to cause such injury by using plaintiff's name," the judge said. "On this record, that evidence is wholly lacking." Twist, 32, formerly among hockey's most feared fighters, has been out of the game since June 1999, when his Blues contract expired.
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