In this case, the court looked to the actual wording of the contract and found that the movie rights were not part of the "right to exhibit photoplays of the series." the rule used by the court to determine the definition of the wagners' rights was the:

plain meaning rule

Explanation:

In plain meaning rule, the court will disregard all context or special circumstances when examining a contract. They will use what actually written in the contract even though it might contain bizarre conditions.

For example,

Let's say that person A signed a contract with person B to perform at B's cafe Last Saturday. The contract stated that if Person A fail to show up at Saturday, She'll be subjected to a $5,000 fine.

On Saturday, person A fail to show up  because she had an accident.

If the court does not adopt a plain meaning rule,  The $ 5,000 could be pardoned from person A due to unexpected circumstances. But, if plain meaning rule is applied, Person A still have to pay that $5,000.

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