In a 20-year battle, a Brunswick woman has been playing David against a corporate Goliath.

“There’s an old gypsy curse that goes, `May you have a lawsuit where you know you are right,’ ” said Joan Crosby Tibbetts.

Tibbetts has been engulfed in a series of court battles with CPC International, the makers of Skippy Peanut Butter, for the past two decades. The 57-year-old wants to reclaim the legacy of her father, once called the “Rembrandt of American Cartoonists” by Walt Disney.

Tibbetts’ father, Percy Crosby, was the creator of and model for the cartoon “Skippy Skinner,” which began in Life magazine in 1923.

The Hearst newspaper chain began syndication of Skippy in 1927, and by 1931 the strip was translated in 14 languages in 28 countries. The little boy with his bucket of red paint and an artist’s brush became America’s darling for a generation. Novels, magazine serializations, a radio show and a movie were all based on Skippy.

Skippy remained a growth industry through the Depression, selling hundreds of millions of dollars in endorsed products such as dolls, ice cream, candy, bread, cereal bowls, silverware, games, toys, clothes, books, sleds and bikes.

In addition to being the reigning cartoonist of his day, Crosby was also an accomplished fine artist, with his art bought by major European museums. Crosby also was a barbed political cartoonist, who took on the era’s most powerful figures, including William Marcy “Boss” Tweed and President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

This era not only altered the course of history but also, as Tibbetts learned years after her father’s death, introduced a chain of events that destroyed Skippy’s creator and silenced Skippy for more than 30 years.

Those events began after Crosby set out to expose mobster Al Capone’s ties to big business and government, Tibbetts said.

For three months of his strip in 1930, Skippy and his friends would write patriotic messages on a fence, only to have Scarface (the Capone character) and his gang paint over them, Tibbetts recalled. At the run’s end, Skippy was kidnapped by Scarface, so Scarface’s candidates could win the fixed elections. To emphasize the kidnapping, the strip disappeared for a few weeks, prompting concerned letters from readers.

In 1931, Crosby spoke against Capone in Chicago. Crosby’s own Hearst syndicate wouldn’t cover the story, and the Skippy strip was dropped in the Chicago and Detroit papers, because the media was either intimidated or paid off by Capone, Tibbetts claimed.

Crosby’s crusade against the mob led to the battle that eventually brought him down, according to Tibbetts. Her own fight with Skippy Peanut Butter had its roots in the stock market crash, when a California peanut butter company, Rosefield Packing Co., lost big. Tibbetts believed the company was linked to the mob, citing the fact that the company’s Chicago-based attorney was later investigated by the Justice Department for “nefarious activities.”

At about the time of the stock market crash, Rosefield also lost its contract to produce Peter Pan Peanut Butter, so instead began using Skippy labels on its jars, Tibbetts said. The product sold briskly in California, despite the company’s lack of advertising.

Tibbetts pointed out that the peanut butter label depicted Skippy’s childlike signature on the comic strip fence with his familiar bucket and brush.

“It was just like slapping Mickey Mouse’s face on the jar,” she said.

Tibbetts added that her father had never given any permission to Rosefield to use Skippy’s name or likeness. Crosby filed suit in the patent office in 1934, and Rosefield was prohibited from registering the Skippy trademark for peanut butter.

Tibbetts alleged that Rosefield’s attorney told the company to ignore the patent office’s decision and use the Skippy name anyway. She said the attorney also threatened the cartoonist, saying he would contact the Internal Revenue Service to investigate Crosby if he again attempted to stop Rosefield.

Her father persisted in his legal efforts against the company, she said, adding that the IRS indeed began investigating him late in 1934. In 1936, the IRS hit Crosby’s company, Skippy Inc., with $43,000 in back taxes, and put liens on his properties.

Tibbetts insisted that Crosby and Skippy Inc. didn’t owe any back taxes. So why was the IRS investigating him?

“That’s the $64,000 question,” she said. “The commissioner of the IRS and other high officials were political appointees in those days. I think Capone’s men had infiltrated the IRS.”

Hearst cancelled the Skippy strip in 1945. Tibbetts believed that advertisers in the Name Brand Foundation, which included CPC, put pressure on the then-financially strapped Hearst to withdraw Skippy. She said Crosby also often had contract disputes with Hearst, and argued against the syndicate’s running ads for Skippy Peanut Butter.

Crosby continued to fight the IRS and Rosefield, unsuccessfully, in court. In 1946, the IRS froze all Crosby’s personal and corporate assets. Two years later, emotionally and financially exhausted, Crosby attempted suicide and was committed to a New York hospital. Cut off from his family and friends, he died in poverty on his 73rd birthday in 1964.

Tibbetts soon picked up the fight, as administrator of Crosby’s estate.

In 1978, CPC International, which bought Skippy Peanut Butter from Rosefield in 1954, paid Tibbetts and Skippy Inc. $25,000.

Although she thought CPC had agreed with her to use her father’s Skippy character to advertise its peanut butter, the company never did use it.

“It took me years to figure out (the money) was just to shut me up,” she said.

Tibbets said she also had been told that there were no documents held by her father’s law firm that prevented CPC from using the Skippy name. Then she discovered that the same law firm, Lord, Day & Lord of New York City, had represented both Skippy Inc. and CPC International since the 1930s.

In 1980, Tibbetts sued CPC for fraud, alleging that the company unnecessarily required her to sign a release in order to gain access to her father’s legal files.

“The law firm had a duty to turn those files over to me, files that showed that CPC’s right to the trademark didn’t exist,” Tibbetts said.

Citing the 1934 ruling by the patent office, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals found that Rosefield had falsely claimed that no final decision had been reached concerning ownership of the trademark, according to Tibbetts.

Tibbetts continues to feel that because the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision and the 1934 decision — which prohibited Rosefield from registering the Skippy name for peanut butter — Skippy Inc. could cancel the trademark at any time.

“We’re trying to get back into court to cancel their trademark,” she said.

When contacted by the NEWS, however, CPC officials disagreed with Tibbetts’ legal assessment. The firm issued a statement declaring that: “After a full trial, the (U.S. District Court in Virginia) rejected all of SI’s claims. SI appealed that decision to the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed the dismissal of the claims against CPC. The U.S. Supreme Court then declined to hear SI’s appeal.”

Undeterred, Tibbetts and Skippy Inc., introduced in 1986 a caramel-corn pail decorated with the Skippy character. This time, CPC took Skippy Inc. and Pineland Peanut Processors, the pail’s manufacturer, to court for trademark infringement. The judge ruled in CPC’s favor, citing the firm’s long and exclusive use of the name SKIPPY on food products which caused consumers to automatically connect any food product with Skippy Peanut Butter and CPC.

The decision effectively gave CPC exclusive rights to the Skippy trademark for any and all food products, according to CPC. In addition, the court ordered Tibbetts to stop “communicating in any manner with anyone that Skippy Inc.’s rights in the trademark SKIPPY include the right to use SKIPPY on peanut butter and food products and, conversely, that CPC has no rights in the SKIPPY trademark in connection with these products.”

Frustrated by the court system, Tibbetts decided to take her case to the public. She and her four children bought shares of CPC stock in 1989 so that they could attend the firm’s annual meeting, at which the family announced they were starting a national boycott of Skippy Peanut Butter.

All these court battles took a toll on Tibbetts and her husband, Walter, who often served as their own lawyers because of the financial drain. Walter suffered a massive heart attack in 1986. He died in 1988, after the couple had moved back to Maine.

Although weary, Tibbetts continues her fight. She has come out with a Skippy doll (see related article), and has begun fighting CPC’s new product, Skippy Peanut Butter Ice Cream.

“What keeps me going is the disbelief at what they did to my father and my husband,” Tibbetts said. “A large company will try to get someone’s creation by wearing you down in the courts. But winners never quit and quitters never win. Skippy was never a quitter. He was always symbolic of the little guy speaking up for his rights.”