Last July, The Walt Disney Co. experienced a $270 million calamity when a California jury ruled that the company had cheated Who Wants To Be A Millionaire producer Celador International out of profits. Disney's pain then got worse when a judge upped that amount to $319 million, including pre-trial interest, refusing to re-hear the case after six years of protracted litigation.

Now Disney is appealing. Can the company escape paying Celador such a whopping figure? On Tuesday, its lawyers offered five reasons why the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals should overturn the verdict.

The Millionaire case was a watershed moment in Hollywood, a public indictment of the way Disney accounted for profits on a hit show. In the lawsuit, Celador claimed that Disney and its susidiaries ABC and Buena Vista Television brokered sweetheart deals amongst themselves, thus operating a "shell game" whereby millions of dollars in revenue were hidden from Celador's grasp. A month-long trial featured a who's who of Hollywood on the witness stand, including Disney CEO Robert Iger and some of the top television agents in the business.

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