The legal battle between AMC and former Walking Dead showrunner Frank Darabont heats up as Darabont's legal team responds to the former party's criticisms against the plaintiffs' case

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Deadline reports that Darabont and the Creative Artists Agency (CAA) have replied to AMC's letter concerning the request for company documents that the network deemed "unrelated." In a letter to Judge Eileen Bransten (that can be found in full here ), Darabont and CAA's lawyer Jerry Bernstein wrote that, though responses to discovery letters are "neither required nor necessary," his team felt "compelled to respond... in order to set the record straight.""Plaintiffs respectfully submit that the Letter Response is either an intentional effort to obfuscate Plaintiffs’ claims or, more likely, designed for purposes unrelated to discovery,” wrote Bernstein. “In any event, Defendants are attempting to argue their bizarre contract interpretations during what should be a routine discovery dispute.”The letter goes on to accuse AMC of intentionally delaying proceedings, stating that “this could be resolved easily if Defendants agreed that ‘highly confidential’ documents were for outside litigation counsel’s eyes only, or that all parties be treated equally and fairly regarding who may see ‘highly confidential’ documents.” Denouncing AMC's argument that exposing the alleged "highly confidential" documents would give Darabont's team an unfair competitive advantage as "ridiculous," Bernstein goes on to write, “It is unfortunate that Defendants are using this protective order issue as an excuse to delay producing documents indefinitely—even documents they have agreed to produce.”The documents Darabont's team is requesting are apparently related to license fees for Mad Men and Breaking Bad, two notable AMC shows which, unlike The Walking Dead , are produced by unaffiliated studios. Bernstein argues that not only is this information relevant, "it is foundational" to the plaintiffs' claims. "AMC’s arguments to the contrary do not survive the barest of scrutiny,” the letter states.This high-profile kerfuffle all started with a lawsuit filed by Darabont on December 17 last year concerning the sudden termination of The Walking Dead showrunner after season 1. The suit claims that AMC engaged in “the improper and abusive practice of self-dealing” by producing the show and basically "selling" it to themselves, rather than following the usual practice of purchasing series from outside production companies -- as is the case with the aforementioned Mad Men (produced by Lionsgate) and Breaking Bad (produced by Sony). Darabont and his team are suing the network for compensation they are allegedly contractually owed for The Walking Dead and its aftershow, Talking Dead.In a strongly-worded letter filed on May 16, AMC dismissed the plaintiffs' case as "ill-conceived" and contradictory to "the plain language of the law."

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