Two historians lost another legal battle in British courts on Wednesday over claims that author Dan Brown plagiarised their ideas for his blockbuster novel The Da Vinci Code.
Three of Britain’s senior judges dismissed the appeal by Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh against an earlier high court ruling that also rejected their claims.
The decision leaves the historians facing estimated legal costs of £3-million pounds.
It seems unlikely that the case will go any further as no application has been made for permission to appeal to Britain’s highest court, the House of Lords.
In their action against The Da Vinci Code publishers, Random House, Baigent and Leigh claim that Brown copied significant parts of The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, which they wrote in 1982.
In the appeal, their lawyers argued that the high court judge, Mr Justice Smith had misunderstood the law and the basis of their claims.
Both The Da Vinci Code and The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail raise the possibility that Mary Magdalene had a child by Jesus, that she fled to France after the Crucifixion and that Christ’s bloodline survives to this day. — Reuters