Adam Carolla settles out of court

A comedy podcast has been at the centre of a £3million legal battle that destroyed a 30-year friendship.

Comedian Adam Carolla has now settled the lawsuit with producer Donny Misraje, who had sought $4.5 million in damages – although terms of the out-of-court deal have been kept secret.

Misraje had claimed that he was the creative force behind the record-breaking podcast and had been promised 30 per cent of the company.

The deal was reached after a judge in Los Angeles Superior Court limited Misraje's claim for damages from 2009 to 2012, the year Carolla fired him, CNN reports. Misraje had sought a share of the podcast profits until 2017.

Misraje claimed he came up with the idea for the podcast in 2009 after his friend lost his job hosting a morning radio show on a CBS-owned station in LA. He claimed he was promised a cut of the business in a ‘handshake deal’ but never got anything in writing.

He said he walked away from his $231,000-a-year job, took out a second mortgage on his home and encouraged his wife and cousin to join the business, even though Carolla could not make any money from the daily podcast for the first year as part of his severance deal with CBS.

The comedian’s lawyer had argued that many people had encouraged Carollo to start a podcast and called Misraje a ‘partner’ to humour him.

The Adam Carolla Show had nearly 60 million unique downloads between March 2009 and March 2011, according to Guinness World Records, usurping previous holder Ricky Gervais

Published: 10 Sep 2014