Hasbro Wants Fox News Anchor's $5 Million Toy Hamster Identity Theft Lawsuit Dismissed
Hasbro Inc. requested in a court filing Monday that a federal judge dismiss the $5 million lawsuit filed by Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner against the toy manufacturer in August, the Associated Press reports. Faulkner alleges that Hasbro appropriated her name and likeness for one of its toy hamster products.
The alleged hamster, part of Hasbro’s “Littlest Pet Shop” line, is named “Harris Faulkner.”
“Faulkner is extremely distressed that her name has been wrongly associated with a plastic toy that is a known choking hazard that risks harming small children,” read court papers filed in federal court in New Jersey at the end of August. “Further, Hasbro’s portrayal of Faulkner as a rodent is demeaning and insulting.”
However, in its motion to dismiss, filed on Monday Hasbro says that, except for their name, the two share nothing in common: “Ms. Faulkner is an adult, African-American, human, female newscaster; the Hamster Toy is an inch-tall, cartoon-like plastic animal, which has no apparent gender or profession, or even clothing that might identify its gender or profession.”
Faulkner’s lawsuit says that in addition to sharing her name, the toy bears a physical resemblance to Faulkner’s traditional professional appearance, including its complexion, eye shape and eye makeup design.
The Harris Faulkner toy was introduced in 2014, according to the lawsuit, and was sold in a package as the pet hamster of a terrier named Benson Detwyler. Other toys in the popular line include animals named Pancakes Watkins, Puffball Petrovsky and Pepper Clark.
“A side-by-side comparison of Ms. Faulkner and the Hamster Toy shows that the two bear absolutely no resemblance,” Hasbro claims.
Images via AP Images/Hasbro. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.