It's because the showrunners of The Pitt worked on E.R and were in talks with Crichton's widow to make a sequel, but the network didn't want to pay the royalties she was asking for. So they pivoted to making an original medical drama that was very similar to E.R, hence her suing them.

Nothing of the sort was ruled. There hasn’t been any substantial proceedings at all. The only thing that has been decided is that there is enough of a plausible claim to proceed with a case.

Perhaps there is nothing there but an ER-based medical drama featuring a common actor and some common show runners and staff. Perhaps discovery will uncover some damning evidence of (surprise) TV evecs being shitty people and trying to screw over creators of an IP.

Time will tell

No the judge is being reasonable while you are being OTT. As others have said, there were talks to make a reboot/sequel to ER which fell through and ER was directly adapted from a Michael Crichton script. The key is the same producers went on anyway to make a show that even used a same principle actor because they allegedly didn't want to pay for the rights.

The judge has only ruled that there is a case to hear on face value. It may well be that once the facts are heard, the producers and Warner Brothers win. It may well be that the producers lose and are felt to have effectively made the same show anyway, and owe the estate money.

It's important to remember that ER is directly based on a script written by Michael Crichton who was a medical student in an emergency room prior to being a writer. Steven Spielberg took the script and developed it with John Wells and the pilot for ER is pretty much that script, barely changed. It's not some tenuous connection - it is effectively Michael Crichton's show as much as the other original producers, no matter how much it changed over 15 seasons.

This is not about making shows based in Emergency Rooms. This purely about whether this show is actually a sequel to ER that has been changed a little to get away from paying one of the original producers estates. If it had not been the exact same producers who were discussing making a sequel to ER, then there likely wouldn't have been a case.

The Pitt's executive producers include: John Wells, an executive producer on ER, R Scott Gemmil a writer & producer on ER and Noah Wyle an actor on ER. At face value that is quite the coincidence, especially when they also pitched a reboot of ER.

That's kinda like saying Michael Imperioli couldn't take a role as a mob boss because he played Christopher Moltisanti and that would make it a Sopranos spin-off.

So an actor is only allowed to be in one show and then they have to retire?

I think they are hoping to find something in discovery, because as it is, there isn't a case here.

That’s meta as fuck

I've worked in kitchens before, but I don't think I'd compare it to the chaos of an ER.

It hasn't got any of the same characters as ER, it shot in the completely different manner, it's not even setting the same country as ER.

House has joined and thinks these people are all idiots.

The Good Doctor has joined but quickly left because there were an odd number of votes on this post.

And a climate change denier

Well Noah Whily or whatever his name is is a huge Zionist. So them losing is a win for me.

Coincidence? I think not.

💯

I don't know. Here's a couple of the very clear examples if you want to search for yourself:

ER:
Season 1 Episode 15 ("Feb. 5, '95"): Dr. Mark Greene treats a terminally ill cancer patient named Grace (or a breast cancer/lymph node cancer patient) who asks him to help her die. Mark increases her morphine dose to relieve her severe pain, which results in her death, sparking an ethical debate among viewers and staff about end-of-life care and palliative dosing.

The Pitt:
Episode 11 ("5:00 P.M.") of The Pitt, (dying terminal cancer patient, Roxie) Dr. Cassie McKay and Dr. Robby increase her morphine dose (invoking the doctrine of double effect, where the primary goal is pain relief even if it risks suppressing respiration) and Roxie passes away while the team deals with other emergency room crises.

ER:
The storyline occurs in Season 1, Episode 20, titled "Full Moon, Saturday Night" (originally aired in April 1995). In this episode, the ER is chaotic due to a full moon. The nurse Haleh Adams informs Dr. Susan Lewis that a newborn baby was found abandoned inside a trash bag.

The Pitt:
The Pitt spans Season 2, starting with Season 2, Episode 5 (titled "BABY JANE DOE!") Baby Jane Doe is an infant found abandoned in the hospital's waiting room bathroom at 7:30 a.m..

It's easily on the same level with Sopranos, Wire, Breaking Bad, etc. Astonishingly good.