Jemel Countess/WireImage.comUPDATE: A federal appeals court agreed with the lower court's ruling, effectively putting an end to the Seinfelds' copyright infringement saga.
"As we have said from the beginning, nothing was copied from Missy Chase Lapine and her baseless claims against Jessica were an abuse of the judicial system," Jessica Seinfeld's lawyer, Orin Snyder, said in a statement on April 28. "Two different courts have now seen through these false allegations, and that is why this case has been definitively thrown out of court."
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Turns out there is still room in the mashed-veggies market for Jessica Seinfeld.
A judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit brought by the author of a for-kids cookbook who accused Jerry's wife of ripping off her handy-dandy ideas for getting young ones to eat their vegetables and other oft-rejected healthy stuff.
Saying that the two books, Jessica's Deceptively Delicious: Secrets to Getting Your Kids Eating Good Food and plaintiff Missy Chase Lapine's The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals, are "very different," U.S. District Court Judge Laura Swain ruled that Lapine had neither a trademark nor copyright-infringement case against the Seinfelds.
Most notably, Jessica Seinfeld's book is "bright and cheerful, full of different colors and various patterns," while Lapine's is "a dry, rather text-heavy work."
Swain opted not to decide whether Jerry Seinfeld is reliably hilarious or actually malicious, saying Lapine's defamation complaint against the comedian over jokes he made about her on Late Show With David Letterman is a matter for a state court to decide.
Despite that bit of uncertainty, all of the above sounds pretty appetizing to the Seinfelds so far.
"Today's decision is an enormous victory," the couple's attorney, Orin Snyder, tells E! News.
"The ruling in Jessica's favor is unequivocal, dismissing every claim made by the plaintiff against her and confirming that this opportunistic and meritless lawsuit never should have been brought in the first place. No one copied anything from the plaintiff—not Jessica and not HarperCollins.
"Jessica created her best-selling cookbook in her own kitchen and from her own experiences."
The Seinfelds have three children, at least one of whom is apparently a picky eater.
"We are pleased that the court saw through this sham and dismissed the baseless copyright claim," Snyder continues. "The court also dismissed the claim against Jerry, declining to hear it on procedural grounds. As we have said all along, Jerry has a constitutional right to tell jokes and perform satire."
Appearing on Letterman in October 2007, Jerry joked about the "vegetable plagiarism" lawsuit and how he was especially worried about the plaintiff's name.
"If you read history, many of the three-name people do become assassins," he quipped. "Mark David Chapman. And, you know, James Earl Ray. So, that's my concern."
Lapine's attorney, Howard Miller, tells E! that they will continue to pursue the defamation allegation and are considering whether to appeal Swain's ruling.
—Reporting by Lindsay Miller and Claudia Rosenbaum
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It's Seinfeld's ex who was the designer, but all this entrepreneurial talk has us thinking about celebs and their fashion lines.