Geena Davis Suing Mad

Geena Davis is feeling less than charitable toward the owners of a Minnesota-based advocacy group.

The actress is suing Joseph Kelly and Nancy Gruver, owners of the nonprofit organization Dads & Daughters, claiming the duo stole her idea for the group and are passing it off as their own.

In court papers filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court, the Thelma & Louise star says that she came up with the idea for an organization that encourages fathers to be involved in their daughters' lives in 2004, which she dubbed the See Jane foundation.

According to the lawsuit, Davis says she raised $750,000 for the group after Kelly and Gruver signed on as the project's fiscal sponsors. Later, she says they told her "that they were the owners of the See Jane project and whatever legal rights existed in the See Jane name and goodwill."

Davis also alleges that Kelly and Gruver told others they owned the project and that they have been using her name and likeness without her permission to promote the group.

Kelly and Gruver say they are shocked by the lawsuit, telling United Press International that "Geena has acknowledged DAD's ownership of the See Jane program and expressed her admiration and gratitude" for their role in the organization.

They also told Reuters that they had been working with Davis to allow her to operate See Jane independently after they told her they were moving the group to New York City and she said she wanted to set it up somewhere else.

Davis, however, begs to differ. She says Dads & Daughters, which is billed on its website as being an advocate for girls' well-being that creates programs and publications that support fathers' involvement in the lives of their daughters, is a total rip-off of her idea.

She is seeking unspecified compensatory and punitive damages.

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