This Week In Lawsuits: SpongeBob's (Not So) Nautical Nonsense

Former SpongeBob Squarepants lead artist Todd White’s slick website includes a section where you can keep abreast of “what’s going on in Todd’s fast-moving world”; currently, it includes clips about his various media appearances, side projects and celebrity [sic] endorsements. What you won’t find, however, is news about a curious series of back-and-worth lawsuits he’s involved in this month.

It all began a few weeks ago when White’s dealer, Peggy Howell of Gallery HB in Huntington Beach, CA, accused White of sending a posse of hired goons to her gallery to commandeer White’s artwork, steal company documents including client lists and even attempt to transfer the gallery lease to White’s name. Howell is seeking $5.5 million in damages, as well as an injunction prohibiting White from using the gallery client lists (since apparently that’s where the real money is).

Not one to take Howell’s accusations lying down (at the bottom of the sea, perhaps?), White filed a countersuit late last week. According to the New York Times:

White tells a quite different story about what happened that night. It states that Mr. White discovered that Ms. Howell was making and selling unauthorized copies of his work, and that he sent agents to confront her at the gallery with evidence.

“Realizing that she had been caught red handed,” the suit states, Ms. Howell admitted the fraud, and in exchange for not being sued agreed to return to Mr. White all of the artwork of his that she had purchased to sell in the gallery.

In the meantime, White has been purged from the Gallery HB website, though you can still watch several videos from happier times at the gallery’s YouTube page.

However this turns out, it’ll make a great movie script someday. (Or at least a really good SpongeBob episode.)

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