After fulfilling her seven-year Warner Bros. contract in 1943, deHavilland was informed that six months had been added to her contract for the times that she had been suspended. At the time, the studios had adopted the position that California law allowed them to suspend contract players for rejecting a role, and the period of suspension could be added to the contract period. Most contract players accepted this, but a few tried to challenge this assumption, including Bette Davis, who mounted an unsuccessful lawsuit against Warner Bros. in the 1930s. On August 23, 1943, acting on the advice of her lawyer, Martin Gang, deHavilland filed suit against Warner Bros. in Los Angeles County Superior Court seeking declaratory judgement that she was no longer bound by her contract on the grounds that an existing section of the California Labor Code forbade an employer from enforcing a contract against an employee for longer than seven years from the date of first performance. In November 1943, the Superior Court found in deHavilland's favour, and Warner Bros. immediately appealed. A little over a year later, the California Court of Appeal for the Second District ruled in her favour. The decision was one of the most significant and far-reaching legal rulings in Hollywood, reducing the power of the studios and extending greater creative freedom to performers. California's resulting "seven-year rule", as articulated by the Court of Appeal in analysing Labor Code Section 2855 in the De Havilland case, is still known today as the De Havilland Law. Her legal victory, which cost her $13,000 () in legal fees, won deHavilland the respect and admiration of her peers, among them her own sister, Joan Fontaine, who later commented, "Hollywood owes Olivia a great deal." Warner Bros. reacted to deHavilland's lawsuit by circulating a letter to other studios that had the effect of a "virtual blacklisting". As a consequence, deHavilland did not work at a film studio for nearly two years.