In a 1981 decision later overruled by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in a case brought by Fleming, federal judge William C. Conner ruled that the producers of "A Day in Hollywood / A Night in the Ukraine" had improperly used the Marx Brothers characters in their Broadway theatre production and that the publicity rights of the comedians, even after their deaths, overrode the First Amendment issues raised by the show's creators. In April 1980, Conner refused to issue a preliminary injunction and allowed producer Alexander H. Cohen to open the show as planned.