Judge rejects copyright suit against Stephen King

By Bill Rankin

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

An Atlanta judge has thrown out a lawsuit that claimed author Stephen King stole another writer's ideas for the best-selling 2008 novel "Duma Key."

Rod Marquardt filed a copyright infringement suit last year against King and his publisher, Simon & Schuster. Marquardt contended King took key passages and copied the plot of Marquardt's first and only novel, "Keller's Den," published in 2002 under the nom de plume "Rod Morgan."

Marquardt's lawsuit noted that shortly after the publication of "Keller's Den," he sent a copy of the novel to King's publisher, hoping King would read the book and write a blurb for the cover. Simon & Schuster returned the book, however, and informed Marquardt that King did not accept other authors' books for review, the ruling said.

"Keller's Den" is about a family curse that allows a malevolent force to possess its members, including the lead character Martin Keller, who takes up painting and then begins having hallucinatory experiences in which he is transported to the scenes of his paintings. The thriller "Duma Key" about a Minnesota construction company owner who loses his arm and suffers head injuries from a crane accident and then moves to a Florida island where he becomes obsessed with psychic painting.

When Marquardt read "Duma Key" after it was published, he became convinced King stole his ideas and copied his work, said his lawsuit, which provided a lengthy list of analogous details from both novels.

But U.S. District Judge Julie Carnes, in a ruling issued last week, said she failed to find substantial similarity between the two works and dismissed the suit.

"Keller's Den," Carnes wrote, is essentially a religious allegory of fall and redemption, while "Duma Key" is primarily a psychological novel. The lead character of Marquardt's book is an otherwise ordinary and decent person possessed to do evil things by his family curse. Edgar Freemantle, the lead character of "Duma Key," is a man deeply depressed as a result of his accident, Carnes noted.

Also, "Keller's Den" is driven more by action than suspense, whereas "Duma Key" is a novel that creates suspense, fear and mystery through the exploration of Freemantle's psychology, Carnes said.

"While both works feature the idea of a newly discovered painting skill connected to some ancient evil, each work expresses that idea in very different ways," Carnes concluded. "Keller's Den" is transparent and direct in its literary devices and message, while "Duma Key" is a "mystery that strews puzzle-pieces throughout the novel, only showing how they fit together after the reader is deep within the work."