Rowling Wins Muggles Suit - 12:00pm ET, 19-September-02 - Reuters

A federal court on Sept. 18 threw out author Nancy Stouffer's claims that Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling stole the term "muggles" from Stouffer's books, the Reuters news service reported. The claim was part of a suit against Rowling and her U.S. publisher and movie producer that Rowling had stolen terms and characters, the news service reported.

In Rowling's books, "muggles" is the name wizards give to humans who have no magical abilities. Stouffer had used the term to describe mythical characters in her books for children, the news service reported.

But the U.S. District Court for southern New York found not only that Rowling did not steal "muggles," but also that Stouffer had lied to the court and doctored evidence to support her claims. The court fined Stouffer $50,000 for this "pattern of intentional bad faith conduct," Reuters reported. Rowling, book publisher Scholastic Corp. and Warner Brothers said that the court forbade Stouffer to ever claim to own the rights to the muggles name or to say that Rowling violated those rights. In addition, the court told Stouffer to pay a portion of the attorney's fees incurred by Rowling, Scholastic and Warner, the news service reported. A lawyer for Stouffer was not available for comment to Reuters.

--But where is that Fifth book, dammit!!