How Prison Break was sued by brothers who claimed show stole their story

In 2005, Fox released the first series of its popular drama Prison Break. The following year, the company was hit with a lawsuit from two brothers claiming it had stolen their story.

Robert and Donald Hughes sought damages from Fox as they filed their copyright infringement case, which claimed their agent had sent a manuscript to Fox in 2001 which detailed their own experiences.

Robert was just 16 years old when he was wrongfully incarcerated in juvenile detention after his mother, who suffered from paranoid delusions, claimed he had threatened her with an ice pick during an argument.

His mother later retracted her claims, but the teenager was ordered to remain in detention until he was 21.

Following the sentencing, Donald came up with a plan. He managed to break Robert out of prison, and the pair spent four years on the run, working jobs where they could while continuing to evade police.

It wasn't until 1968 when they were exonerated after The Kansas City Star published their story.

Though it's certainly a wild tale, the brothers claimed Fox weren't interested in it after being given the manuscript. As a result, they were left surprised when the company released a series about an engineer who manages to position himself in a prison in order to save his falsely accused brother from a death sentence.

Speaking to The Associated Press at the time, Robert commented: "If we sold the manuscript at this point to a movie studio or network, they’d think we were copying Prison Break."

Donald added: "It’s a classic case of the rich trampling on the poor."

Fox

Prison Break went on to span five seasons before coming to an end in 2017, with a finale which saw protagonist Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) reunited with his family after years of hiding.

The year the finale was released, the show's creator Paul Scheuring indicated there could be more to come if the writers came up with a worthwhile story.

“There’s a zero percent chance of the show coming back if we don’t have a top-notch story," he said, per The Hollywood Reporter.

"Right now, we don’t have that story. That’s not to say we can’t find it. But we’re not going to make the show in perpetuity because we want to. We want it to be of very high value and high quality," the creator continued.

In spite of Scheuring's comments, any hopes for a new story involving the original cast went out of the window in 2020, when Miller said he was finished with the series.

It's unclear what came of the Hughes brothers' lawsuit against Fox, but the fact the show went on to create numerous more seasons indicates it wasn't enough to derail it altogether.

UNILAD has reached out to 20th Television for an update on the lawsuit.