Brad Pitt won a June 24 ruling from the California Court of Appeal in the winery lawsuit with Angelina Jolie and Yuri Shefler. The court reversed a lower court order that had let Shefler walk away, and it allowed Pitt and Mondo Bongo to recover appeal costs.
California Court of Appeal
The appellate panel said the purchase of Jolie’s shares was governed by California law, and it wrote that Shefler’s California contacts were enough to keep him in the case. The decision said those contacts came through buying a California company from a California resident and that the dispute caused injury to another California resident and California company.
That ruling matters procedurally because it keeps the jurisdiction fight alive while the underlying winery dispute moves toward trial next year. Pitt claimed that after Jolie sold her shares of the winery to Tenute del Mondo in 2021, he became an unwilling partner of Shefler, which is the legal theory the appeal kept in play.
Paul Murphy Response
Paul Murphy said on Thursday, June 25, that the ruling had no impact on the merits of the case and no impact on Jolie’s case. He also said Jolie was looking forward to defeating the case at trial next year so the family can focus its energies on healing and moving on.
That pushback draws a line between jurisdiction and the substance of the dispute. The Court of Appeal reversed the lower court on where Shefler could be hauled into California, but it did not decide whether Pitt’s approval was required for the 2021 sale.
Miraval Fight Continues
The winery lawsuit dates to 2022, when Pitt sued Jolie over the alleged sale of her share of the French winery without his approval. Jolie has said no two-party consent agreement existed, and she said she tried to arrange a buyout with Pitt but that he allegedly refused unless she signed an NDA.
Pitt and Jolie were married from 2014 to 2016 and share six children. Their divorce was finalized in December 2024, but the dispute over Miraval is still headed back to trial, where the contract language and the ownership structure will do the real work.
