The Pitt, HBO Max’s award-winning medical drama series, is facing a legal issue now that a lawsuit by ER creator Michael Crichton’s widow is moving forward in court. Sherri Crichton is accusing The Pitt of ripping off her late husband’s show. According to her lawsuit, which was filed in August 2024, Crichton is alleging The Pitt’s creators, Noah Wyle, John Wells and R. Scott Gemmill, had originally wanted to reboot ER.
Crichton further alleged that The Pitt was made after she rejected an ER reboot.
In November 2026, an appeals court ruled that Crichton’s lawsuit could proceed because it found “numerous similarities” between The Pitt and ER.
“I am deeply gratified by the Court of Appeal decision and look forward to discovery and to our case, which affects writers, creators, and their families and estates, being presented to a jury,” Crichton said in a statement, per Variety.
Here’s what we know about the lawsuit and the two shows.
Is The Pitt Really Similar to ER?
A unanimous three-judge panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal upheld a lower court’s decision to let the case move forward, CBS News reported. The appeals court ruled that “there are clear and numerous similarities between The Pitt and ER,”referring to the fact-paced, chaotic emergency room setting, the medical jargon, graphic scenes of injuries and a young doctor who recently graduated from medical school.
That leaves Warner Bros. Television as the defendant as the case heads back to the trial court. At the heart of the case is a frozen rights provision in Michael Crichton’s contract, which bars Warner Bros. from making sequels, remakes, spinoffs or other productions derived from ER without his consent, or his estate’s consent after his death in 2008, CBS News explained.
The studio is standing its ground. “WBTV continues to maintain that ‘The Pitt’ is an entirely original series and that the claims against it are without merit. Nothing in the Court of Appeal’s decision establishes otherwise, and WBTV looks forward to defending its position as the case proceeds,” Warner Bros. Television said in a statement, per ABC News.
“We find the details here suffice for a prima facie case,” the court said.
The appeals court, however, dismissed a claim against the key creators, Wyle, Wells and Gemmill because it found no evidence that they were aware they could be violating Crichton’s contractual rights.
Wyle, who serves as an executive producer as well as series star on The Pitt, spoke about the team’s choice to leave behind the idea for an ER reboot and focus on a new idea.
“We were going to start down an ‘ER’ reboot road that didn’t come to pass, but we sort of set a table of expectation for a medical show from us that we were then allowed to really fast-track the development process through because of that vacuum that we’d created from the near-miss,” Wyle told Amy Poehler during an October 2026 episode of her “Good Hang” podcast. “And so, this just happened so quickly that it seemed like there was a larger force behind it, and we just needed to stay on the surfboard and let it push us.”
Could The Pitt Get Canceled?
Not necessarily. Although Warner Bros. Television is still being sued, both sides could come to an agreement or at least settle the details in court. Whether The Pitt is actually derived from ER could ultimately be up to a jury to decide unless both sides reach a settlement first, Variety noted. In the meantime, the show is still on schedule, with season 3 expected to premiere on HBO Max in January 2027.
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