LOS ANGELES, March 11 -- A jury has swiftly and unequivocally dismissed claims that Disney's Moana was derived from a story about a young surfer in Hawaii.

On Monday, a federal jury in Los Angeles deliberated for just two and a half hours before concluding that the creators of Moana had no access to writer and animator Buck Woodall's outlines and script for Bucky the Surfer Boy.

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With this issue resolved, the jury of six women and two men did not need to examine the similarities between Bucky and Disney's 2016 animated feature, which follows the journey of a Polynesian princess.

Woodall had shared his work with a distant relative who worked for a separate company on the Disney lot. However...