Page:Michael Foundation, Inc. v. Urantia Foundation v. McMullan.pdf/13

 and Urantia Foundation as “author,” creates a rebuttable presumption that The Urantia Book is a commissioned work, and (2) Michael Foundation failed to rebut the presumption. For several reasons, we disagree. First, as we noted above, the “specially commissioned work” doctrine is a creation of courts extending the 1909 Act’s “work for hire” provisions to independent contractor relationships. Because federal courts did not apply the work for hire doctrine to commissioned works until after 1965, Urantia Foundation cannot have claimed the work as a commissioned work when it filed its original certificate in 1956. See Reid, 490 U.S. at 749, 109 S.Ct. 2266 (citation omitted). The certificate cannot be prima facie evidence of a relationship embodied in a common law doctrine not yet created by the courts. Second, the jury’s determination, supported by ample evidence, that no commissioning relationship existed, does rebut the presumption.

In short, under the appropriately deferential standard of review, there is ample evidence in the record to support the jury’s determination that no commissioning relationship existed between the Conduit and the Contact Commission. The district court, therefore, did not commit reversible error when it denied Urantia Foundation’s renewed motion for judgment as a matter of law on the question of whether its predecessor in interest commissioned the Conduit to create The Urantia Book.


 * B. Exclusion of Barbara Newsom’s Testimony on Grounds of Unfair Surprise

Urantia Foundation moved below for a new trial based upon the district court’s exclusion of Barbara Newsom’s testimony on grounds of unfair surprise. The district court denied the motion, and Urantia Foundation on appeal asserts that this was error requiring us to remand the case to the district court for a new trial. We review the denial of a motion for a new trial for a manifest abuse of discretion. Aguinaga v. United Food & Commercial Workers Int’l Union, 998 F.2d 1463 (10th Cir.1993), ''cert. denied'', 510 U.S. 1072, 114 S.Ct. 880, 127 L.Ed.2d 75 (1994).

Urantia Foundation proffered testimony from Newsom that the Conduit “was aware of the Urantia Papers, knew of the Contact Commission’s intent to publish them, and disclaimed any copyright in the papers.” Newsom’s testimony would have been based upon secret journals purportedly prepared by Dr. Sadler and kept in a locked file cabinet until their unexplained